Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Recent Articles Suggest the Internet is Rewiring Our Brains
By Jill Dahlstrom

A new yet old question looms simultaneously in cyberspace and in the fleshy circuitry of human minds. While people have aggressively pursued technological advancements and build machines to perform a myriad of tasks with cold efficiency and blinding speed, have the machines in turn also changed us? Is it possible that our repeated interaction with computers has made us more productive, or more distracted? Recent articles by Nicholas Carr and Sabrina Saccoccio argue differing angles on the same quandary, and scientific studies on brain plasticity have strong implications for interactive marketing campaigns.

Who’s been tinkering with my brain?

Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” intones a somewhat sinister vibe, which he adopts through references to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Carr implies that computers and the Internet have evolved to the point where they are used as an extension of our own minds and have taken on some human qualities, like the computer character HAL in 2001. Simultaneously, he observes that people have evolved to behave more like computers. Carr identifies significant changes in the way he takes in and processes information intellectually.

“My mind isn’t going – so far as I can tell – but it is changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think,” Carr says, and he parallels this remark with a quote from HAL the computer from 2001, “‘Dave, my mind is going,’ HAL says forlornly. ‘I can feel it. I can feel it.’”

Itemizing the changes he has experienced gradually over the past decade, since he came to rely more heavily on computers to perform research and gather details for his writing career, Carr explains that he finds himself skimming information quickly, like a hunter, merely seeking and decoding information rather than enjoying deep thoughtful reading as he used to. He describes feelings of distraction and difficulty concentrating on tasks that require more than 10 minutes to complete, and Carr is not alone in this experience. He cites many examples from history and philosophy that support his theory that interaction with computers as tools is exerting not so subtle changes on our synapses. “… media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.”

Beginning with changes experienced by Friedrich Nietzsche who began using a typewriter in 1882, and extending through the industrial revolution when machines brought efficiency, volume and speed to the factory setting, Carr describes how these mechanical tools brought about similar changes in the human experience. Nietzsche acknowledged in his time, “our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.”

Nietzsche observed his prose losing some of its depth and originality, and factory workers subjected to the ideals of Frederick Winslow Taylor during the industrial revolution described feeling like extensions of the economic machinery, like automatons. Carr explains how Taylor’s utopian vision for the perfectly efficient mechanical and social system has applied itself to the Internet and has exerted more direct influence on human thought as a result.

“The Internet is a machine designed for the efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information,” Carr says, “and its legions of programmers are intent on finding the ‘one best method’ – the perfect algorithm – to carry out every mental movement of what we’ve come to describe as ‘knowledge work.’”

This notion is culminated in Carr’s present day example of Google, the acknowledged leaders in Internet search technology. Carr explains how the economic model of the Internet is based on the volume of clicks and page views. Thus, Web pages are designed to distract end users and entice us to click-through to read about something else – to watch a video clip, or listen to a sound bite. New media ads are strategically placed in and around articles, and some are animated so that they draw the eye away from the primary page content. The more we click, the more money Google and other search marketers make.

“It is in their economic interest to drive us to distraction,” Carr concludes. He cautions that the style of surface skimming from topic to topic, encouraged by the Internet, may shallow our thought processes and reduce our propensity for deep contemplation.

Stronger, faster, better?

Sabrina Saccoccio presents a different perspective in her story for CBC News, “Are cellphones and the internet rewiring our brains?” While she agrees with Carr’s observation that people are more easily distracted from lengthy readings by the interactivity and richness of the Web, she suggests that this new style of surfing and gathering bits of data might be making us better, more efficient processors of information.

“… there’s a positive side to switching tasks often. You may actually be training your brain to become faster and stronger.”

Saccoccio refers to recent studies in brain plasticity, which prove that the human brain is highly adaptable and able to accommodate the demands of multi-media multi-tasking. These studies also show that rapid adaptation is possible at all ages – not just for the very young.

One such study published in Science Daily illustrates that changes to the circuitry of a mammalian brain can take place in a matter of hours, as the mind is constantly adapting to environmental stimulus.

With the changes in brain chemistry that come through exposure to cell phones, video games and the Internet, people have been observed to switch between tasks more easily, and to better respond to unexpected events, according to Saccoccio.

The accepted social norms are also changing, as we adapt to being a culture that is constantly “on-call” – contactable and available 24/7.

Marketing to the new mind

Because the way people process information appears to be evolving in concert with technological communication advances, the way we communicate about and market products to current and new generations must also evolve.

What will the marketing campaigns of the future look like? We already know about the rampant adoption of mobile communication technology via handheld computers, MP3 players and data phones. So we can infer from these trends that campaigns of the future will most likely be broadcast through these devices in a quick, highly personalized, targeted way, so that the ads integrate seamlessly with the lifestyle of the user.

Youth in America today have already demonstrated a remarkable ability to multitask and maintain interpersonal communications with the persistent interruption of text messages and interaction with a wide circle of local and virtual friends via social Web sites. Yet they are highly sensitive to and often actively reject traditional media advertising. The marketing of the future will need to be highly interactive and tailored to the individual – new media marketing should work with the consumer’s personal style, either by product or by message type, so that the message may be acknowledged and accepted by the user. These types of campaigns would also need to be regulated by industry privacy standards, which have yet to keep pace with advancing technology. Marketers must adapt quickly and be sensitive to the needs of tomorrow’s consumers – or the velocity of change may deem them extinct.

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REFERENCES:

Carr, Nicholas. (2008, July/August). Is Google Making Us Stupid? Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved August 25, 2008 from

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200807/google

Saccoccio, Sabrina. (2007, May 21). Are cellphones and the internet rewiring our brains? CBC News In Depth. Retrieved August 25, 2008 from http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/tech/internet-brain.html

Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. (2006, August 15). Rewiring The Mammalian Brain: Neurons Make Fickle Friends. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 25, 2008 from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060814133621.htm