Ein Artikel darüber, warum wir uns immer weniger merken und uns immer kürzer konzentrieren können, wieso Google daran schuld ist und warum unser Gehirn anders arbeitet als noch vor hundert Jahren. Der Artikel ist nicht nur Pflichtlektüre für alle, die schon einmal vom Internet gehört haben, sondern auch für all jene, die immer schon wussten, dass die Maschinen, die wir bauen, uns letztlich genauso beeinflussen wie wir sie: Is Google Making Us Stupid?.
For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded. [But] media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.
I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing.
Oh Mist.