It knows everything?

There's been a lot of discussion recently based on this Atlantic article, written by Nicholas Carr, simply entitled "Is Google making us stupid?" In it he argues that Google is having all sorts of detrimental effects on his brain, life and writing. He quotes mainly anecdotal stories to argue that, in general Googlers attention-spans are declining, along with our desire to be immersed in anything longer than about 500 words of text (meaning end of pesky Novels or Theses!): "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words" he says, "now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski."

Caleb Crain is of the opinion that the internet is even changing the way we write. He notes how most Blogs have a light, easy and inviting tone which almost begs the reader not to browse elsewhere: "A text on the internet rarely takes for granted your decision to read it or to continue reading it. There is often, instead, a jazzy, hectoring tone." 

Is this all just "intellectual angst" as posited by Shane Hegarty, or how much the Internet is changing what, how and how much we read and write?

Alberto Manguel, in "The Library at Night"  (it sounds like a lovely book, but one I'm sure I'll never read!) suggests the consequence of the multimedia world are that: "The library that contained everything," Manguel laments, 'has become the library that contains anything."  

Yes it's great to have almost all information just a click away, but truth and wisdom cannot be accessed in 500 words alone.  

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