Good news - Google enhances the mind
Jinfo Blog

By Penny Crossland

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For those who are worried that their brains, or their children's brains are being damaged by constant exposure to the internet, there is some good news - a survey of 900 scientists, business leaders and technology developers by the Pew Research Center (http://pewresearch.org) has concluded that the internet enhances our intelligence.

What a relief, given that I spend most of my day searching the web. The web-based annual survey, The Future of the Internet IV (http://digbig.com/5bbdkm) sought to address the claims made by Nick Carr in a controversial article published in The Atlantic magazine in 2008 (http://digbig.com/5bbdkn) entitled "Is Google Making us Stupid?" The author's premise was essentially that constant use of the web is changing the way we think - we have become adept at skimming content, but at the expense of deeper understanding of information. Carr wondered how this would affect intellectual progress in years to come.

The Pew survey asked the expects to react to Carr's assertions and answer four other questions relating to the direction and impact of the internet by 2020:

• Will the internet enhance or or weaken our reading and writing skills?
• Is the next wave of innovation in technology already clear to see or will we be surprised by what is still to come?
• Will information continue to flow freely online, or will there be more control of access?
• Will is still be possible to be anonymous online by 2020?

The answers make for interesting reading. While 65 per cent of those surveyed believed that the internet improved 'reading, writing and rendering of knowledge', there are still many who think that Google and other web tools engender intellectual laziness. Most of the experts (80 per cent) believed that it was impossible to predict what kind of web applications we will be using in ten years' time.

As the report summarises, 'innovation will continue to catch us by surprise'. While more than 60 per cent of respondents believed the internet would remain an open access tool, there were some who expressed concern about countries like China and Iran which they thought would continue to control internet access.Responses to the last question addressed by the report resulted in an almost even split: 55 per cent thought that by 2020 web users would still be able to search anonymously, while the rest thought that in ten years 'anonymous online activity is sharply curtailed'.

The comment that rang most true for me was from Canadian professor David Ellis. (http://digbig.com/5bbdkk )He believes that Google reinforces 'certain dispositions in the end-user: stronger intellects will use Google as a creative tool, while others will let Google do the thinking for them'. In other words: don't blame the machine, blame the user.

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