Attention Span: Aborted

I'll start of by saying that I agree with many points made by Nicholas Carr in his "Is Google making us stupid?". The most prominent point that jumped out at me was the fact that he, as well as I, have noticed the shortening of our attention spans. For a few months, before the start of spring semester, I had been finding myself drifting off when I tried to read something, anything for that matter. About a week before we were assigned this article I had started asking myself "why?". Reading, what used to be an enjoyable pastime, had become something of a challenge for me. For months I had been barely able to make it through a chapter of any reading material and found it exceptionally painful trying to read my text books for classes. So what had changed? Until I read this article I had no answer. As I was reading the text, which I will admit was just as painful, I saw the same signs of boredom Carr was pointing out. As I scanned the rows of words trying my hardest to get to the bottom of the longest article I've ever read in my life, I realized I was doing exactly what he was arguing about, I was yet again just skimming the surface of yet another passage, until I made myself pay attention. Thinking back to when this pattern of behaviour started I could remember a much younger me, sitting on my bed, and reading into the long hours of the night. I could remember being drug into the world that books created for me, I could remember the excitement at a new book from the library, right up until the point where I began high school. That's where it all started. My downward spiral into the abyss of the Internet, into skimming nothing but the bare minimum for only the information I happened to be looking for. It was all just so easy. With the click of a few buttons I had everything I had ever needed. The answer to my homework question, the reason the sky is blue, and every other random tidbit of information I could ever wish for. So to answer the question "Is Google making us stupid?",well I don't know, but I do know that it is changing the way we get our information. Google is changing where we get our information, who we get it from, and the way we process the information we are given. Just like the typewriter and the printing press before it, the pioneer of the Internet search engines is changing the way things are done in the general population. Concerns about the effect that new technolgy has on our psyches is being brought into the light, just like their ancestors before them. What lays down the road in this new world of Google surfing however is yet to be seen.