Monday, September 22, 2008

Is Google Making us Stupid? No. Diverse? Yes.



In his Atlantic Monthly article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr argues that the advent of the Internet has caused readers to become adverse to reading long sections of text, making them more prone to skimming when reading online and – in 
extreme cases – forcing them to give up on reading novels completely. In a world where people seem to be in a constant hurried state and become impatient when it takes more than five seconds for a Web page to load, it’s not surprising that people tend to skim when surfing the Web. However, Carr paints a picture of a world split into an unlikely dichotomy, one where readers either skim texts online or don’t read at all. His argument, which accurately pinpoints the ways in which people use the Internet, does not take into consideration the different types of content people receive from the Internet and printed texts and ignores the ability of readers to consume both types of information separately, benefiting differently from both. 

The Internet provides the world with a vast database of knowledge. Carr says himself that “research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes.” But people who use the Internet are not often looking for an in-depth analysis but a cursory knowledge. Take, for example, people who use the Internet to consume their daily news. With the creation of RSS feeds, people can now receive up-to-date headlines of the nation’s most important news without ever having to physically click on a news source’s Web site. People using RSS feeds are clearly not reading full articles, but skimming through the headlines to give themselves a general understanding of current events. 

Books, on the other hand, are by nature meant for a more in-depth reading experience. Whether they are textbooks providing lengthy explanations about complex processes or novels meant for pleasure and enjoyment, a reader expects – and many times craves – that fulfilling experience of starting and finishing a book, knowing that every word has been read and then mulled over to ensure that the full meaning has been extracted. Just because one turns to the Internet daily for the cursory sweep of the day’s headlines, does not take away from that person’s ability to concurrently sit down and dig into a full-length novel.

A study done by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press shows, in fact, that the growth of the online news audience has slowed since 2000. Online news has become a supplemental source for news, with many people under 40 still turning to traditional news sources for detailed, in-depth reporting, the study found. The stabilizing of online news consumption shows that people are still turning to other sources for their news. If readers are continuing to turn to newspapers for in depth stories, then their ability to read and comprehend these stories should also remain, showing that it is not their ability to read that is declining. But a recent eyetrack study by the Poynter Institute shows that there is not statistical evidence that people find it difficult to read online. In fact, in a comparison between people who read online and people who read print, 23 percent more people read online stories to completion than print stories. Online readers were also just as likely to be methodical readers as they were to be scanners. This shows that while Carr and other like him may be experiencing an inability to read lengthy texts since the advent of the Internet, people suffering problems such as these are just as common as people who have maintained their ability to absorb lengthy texts both online and off.  

Since there is clearly a section of the population who note an inability to read online, perhaps there is something more than just their own waning attention that is causing this phenomenon. In a blog by Sara Quinn, a member of the visual journalism faculty at the Poynter Institute, she strives to look at what makes reading online difficult. Quinn notes that typefaces we are accustomed to in printed text do not translate well to a computer screen, taking away from the smoothness of printed text and making it more difficult for our brains to process what we are reading. Low-resolution monitors, the most common monitors found for an average person’s computer, also make it more difficult to read because they have fewer pixels, which means the legibility of the words decreases. Further, the light emitted by a monitor can be strenuous on the eyes, making it harder for readers to concentrate on the text they are attempting to absorb. 

Of those tested in the Poynter Eyetrack, 56 percent were between the ages of 18-41 and 44 percent were between the ages of 42-60. This causes one to question whether or not generational differences affect the way that we process information with the increased use of the Internet. Carr, and many of the colleagues he mentions in his article, are above the age of 40. They are a part of the Baby Boomer generation for whom Internet didn’t burst onto the stage until they were well into there 30s. But for the Millennial Generation, those students who entered college beginning in the new millennium, Internet has been a part of our reality since the beginning of our formative adolescent years.


I was raised in a family that promoted the reading of books. Both my parents would read in the evenings while I sat working on my homework. Now that I have reached the age where I am both mentally and socially mature enough to read the same novels as them, we often exchange books and recommend titles to one another. But, at the same time, I grew up with the Internet. I can’t remember a time when my house didn’t have a computer and I didn’t know how to go online to find information. Certainly using the Internet has become easier with the demise of dial-up connections and the creation of wireless. But I represent the Millennial at its very core, constantly wired and connected yet appreciative of the benefits of reading in print; the feel of a book in one’s hand, the sound of the turning of pages and the ability to sit and re-read texts over and over to extract their full meaning.

In Mokoto Rich’s article for the New York Times“Literacy Debate, Online: R U Really Reading?” – he describes a young Millennial, Zachary Smith, who also finds a way to settle the difference between reading online and reading books. Smith, who is a freshman at Columbia University, reads political articles online, but mentioned to Rich in his interview that he also read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand this summer. Smith’s ability to do both allows him to gain different skills from each type of reading, corroborating information quickly from online and using deep cognitive skills when reading novels. Smith too represents the Millennial Generation and their ability to gather information from a variety of sources, all the while drawing information and a deeper meaning. 

Carr is accurate in saying that “the kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds.” But what his generational gap blinds him from seeing is that deep reading can happen concurrently with the type of periphery analysis that happens from skimming online. The Millennial Generation has been brought up on the concept of excelling in many areas and having multiple, diverse talents. Thus, it is not impossible for Millennials to spend all day surfing the Web, only to pick up a copy of War and Peace later that evening.  

What is more frightening for the Millennial Generation than a depletion of in-depth reading is the idea of Web 2.0, the development of Web-based communities to allow for greater collaboration. There is so much content on the Web that Millennials are consuming many different things, which has led to a lack of a common culture among them. These days, Web users go online to their personalized news pages and search for music based on their interests, not what iTunes says is the most popular song. Everything online has become so individualized that there is nothing connecting the Millennial Generation to one another. This lack of a common ground causes one to question how the Millennials will shape themselves during this formative time in their lives. What will they look back on and remember as the defining moment of their adolescence? Will it be different for everyone? And if so, then what will happen to the overall responsiveness and mission for this generation? Without a common purpose, this generation will have a difficult time agreeing when it becomes their time to assume leadership roles in this country. And for a generation expected to solve all the problems that the Baby Boomers created, this boasts a difficult roadblock for them to overcome.  

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

He is absolutely right! I write fan-fiction, and had to start my own blog, because reams of readers were complaining that my Paragraphs--which were ordinary sized, just like my eight or nine college English professors taught me--were "too long."

One of the most popular blogs on my blog site, is called, "well written." This is how the man writes his blog.

"Today my boss asked me to go overseas.

It's not because he doesn't like me. But he needs me to learn to speak Greek."

etc, etc.

Sadly, the living (and disgusting) proof is out there, I'm afraid. I've lived it for two years. The majority of internet readers love short sentinces and lots of pictures--just like children do.