I'm going to be honest here... I would never have found this site if I hadn't Googled Writing Forums when I was desperate for a community of writers. I thank Google for that.
Actually, I didn't read the article until later. I removed the link because it is not the appropriate way to open a discussion here. After that, I responded to the points raised by others, based primarily on the thread title - which happens also to be the article title. Frankly, I think that the assertion that giving us more information to wade through prevents us from reading in depth is poorly thought out. Is reading deeper into a single source of information smarter than surveying a larger body of knowledge? Is the ability to screen out the weak content in order to select that which is worthy of a deeper read a reflection of a short attention span? I think not. I grew up in an age where the computer was merely the mindless automaton to blame for dunning letters that you owe $0.00, PLEASE PAY IMMEDIATELY. There was no Internet, and the local library contained dusty books with cracked spines and missing pages, mostly ten years or more out of date. Read them as deeply as you wish, you would not obtain a balanced or comprehensive viewpoint on the subject you were researching. Much of the available content was every bit as poorly researched or thought out as the worst articles on the Internet. The Internet requires us to be selective. It cannot force intelligence or intelligent choice, but it does offer options. You can survey a topic, collecting many shallow analyses, or you can set aside more in-depth articles and read them thoroughly for a deeper understanding. If you want to blame a technology for short attention span, why not stick with tradition and blame the television remote, the Damned Clicker? Or if you're younger, blame it all on video games. Google and the Internet is just a trendier scapegoat.
Hey, I defend text talk. Its a wonderful way to develop friendships/make plans/keep in contact. *rubs phone soothingly*
Actually, text talk/net talk is strongly discouraged. This is a writing site, and verbicide is a capital crime. No one will be censured for the occasional LOL or LMFAO, but when the net talk becomes excessive, something will be said about it.
ROFLMAO always makes me laugh because it sounds so stupid. I can't stand text/net speech, especially when the words in question don't really need to be altered. Eg. "Gud" for "Good". Wow, can't remember the massive list of others. Back on topic. Without Google, I wouldn't have gotten through High School with pretty good grades. The same with University so far, though I have lost marks for citing random Internet sites instead of proper non-fiction book sources. However, I was just too lazy then. Basically, it isn't making "us" stupid. That's ridiculous. I've been taught plenty through using Google - my magic phase probably the best. Perhaps Google is just making the "lesser intelligent" members of the world appear smarter after they've used Google to come up with information? And it's making the rest of us lazy because we know there's information at our finger-tips instead of looking through old library books? We can even view Google from the safety and comfort of our homes. Perhaps a better question: What effect has Google had on the United States obesity crisis? (Note: you could replace the US for Australia - we're both pretty large nowadays )
I owe a 98 in Geography last year to google. most of the information online is correct and to the point. And so you can imagine, if I got just 18 out of 20 for information assembled off the net, how much I would have gotten, if I had consulted books from the library, which actually rarely contain that many books on a particular subject. So yeah, google and other search engines(I tend to use altavista) are actually a lifeline. But then it does depend on the person, if finding information on the disease cancer, I'm stupid enough to open a page on horoscopes, Well then I must be below average.
