Early in my assessment of Car, I accused Carr of blundering because he suggested that the internet could repattern an individual’s cognitive process—is it naïve for me to hope that the same internet can repattern a world’s social stratosphere? Absolutely.

Here’s the question, though: Is it a sign of my ignorance that I must rely on–reference–so many other ideas in forming my own, something which would have been even more time-consuming, if not impossible, to accomplish before Web 2.0 tools like Google and blogs? If so, I don’t mind being broadly stoopid

Then we went home, had babies, and suddenly I had trouble concentrating on anything more intense than Agatha Cristie. I am still busy, but I notice that for vacations I can stock up on literature that I actually have to think about.

So how busy are you and how does that affect your ability to find a regular block of time to read and to think about what you just read? Is this all age-based and as soon as the now teenagers move out the “problem” will be solved?

Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed pointed me to a very interesting and thought-provoking article today. Entitled Is Google Making Us Stoopid?, the author explores the increasing tendency to skim, scan and browse information rather than doing “de…

I will note that I had a weekend to myself, no interruptions, and I chose to spend time on my own blog and to catch up on the back-fill in my reader. I did a lot of wide reading, but also I know I was going deeper. I spent most of the weekend reading, and reflecting, and digging for more. If spread too wide, I often have to take a break. Not at all the case this weekend; if anything, I was disappointed when my reading and thinking had to come to a halt when the masses returned.

In education, I think the deeper reading and thinking can be supported by these online reading experiences particularly when partnered with a literature study. The opportunity for students to use the tools to expand the social discourse beyond the confines of the classroom “hour” and also support their thinking by introducing visual media (images, videos) and hyperlinks to research, another opinion, another book…that to me is appealing and allows for the deep and the wide…and far greater synthesis and potentially creation.

Alas, I must admit to being a lover of books, and a Kindle would not serve me well. I rarely “loan” my books, preferring to add them to my bookshelves and treasure them like good friends. Something written online at The Future of the Book (http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/03/time_out_and_some_of_what_went.html)stays with me. It’s a quote attributed to John Updike. He states that books represent “an encounter, in silence, of two minds.” I guess that is what is at risk here…Here Comes Everybody has a place, but sometimes it’s got to be a more intimate meeting of the minds.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?
In the July/August issue of the “Atlantic Monthly,” Nicholas Carr ponders this question.

I’ll admit that the uber-connectedness of the internet has reprogrammed many of my thought patterns and daily routines. (Morning: “Must turn on computer. Must make coffee and check e-mail.”) On a larger scale, it has, arguably, redefined what it means to be literate. Though Carr celebrates the convenience of the internet, he laments his own lost ability to “read deeply,” sacrificed for the hyper-now-ness and superefficiency of the web.

The whole article is really a coming to terms with these trade-offs. To put it in perspective – or maybe just talk himself through it – Carr informs us that even Socrates himself bemoaned the development of writing. “He feared that, as people came to rely on the written word as a substitute for the knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would … ‘cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.’” And “they would be ‘filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.’”

Hmm.

I admit, like Carr and Socrates, I am sometimes nostalgic for the past and a little frightened of the future. Sometimes I feel like the media artist Paul Chan who foregoes Internet access in his studio to protect himself from what he calls the “tyranny of connectedness.”

Looking into the future, Socrates would have laughed at his worries – maybe even written about them on his blog. In the same way, Carr, myself and other late-comers to the Internet bandwagon will learn to trade our worries for a carefree ride to wherever this magic carpet of technology takes us.

And is it really necessary to make a value judgment? The Internet is here. If that gets to be too much, we can just click on the little red “X” and hide out with a good book for a while.