Is the Internet Making us Dumb?

Nicholas Carr wrote a well-known article in 2008 called, "Is Google Making Us Stupid" for the Atlantic. And it's proved the test of time. We all feel it---we are less able to concentrate, and we get the sense that we are changing as human beings. Do you feel it? What do you think?

[@PLKinka]

I wonder how the permanent overstimulation of a city living and modern messed up sleep schedules factor into it: I can have long stints without internet that help nothing, and long stints on internet when I read books on online repositories or watch long movies or retrospectives on YT. With any kind of social medias, even my country’s version of Reddit and YT comments I notice emotional disregulation that follows spending time there. When I look back on any comment I made it’s like I was neurotic and brain-damaged, even my grammar gets laughably bad. I also did not notice bad symptoms of computers in my early life, just internet. It also fueled my sleep deprivation, I feel like in 3 years into getting an internet access I lost like 40IQ points, studying became impossible etc. But it was also a period when puberty hit and hormones can mess you up as well. It’s hard to tell why I became so dumb.

[@wagraham]

I think you are right. The structure of modern life itself changes us. On this, George Grant and Jacques Ellul have written some helpful writings.