WARNING: Reading this NYT article could make you "stupid"

[Jeffersons Ghost]

The Defense of Computers, the Internet and Our Brains
By NICK BILTON

If you’re reading this blog post on a computer, mobile phone or e-reader, please stop what you’re doing immediately. You could be making yourself stupid. And whatever you do, don’t click on the links in this post. They could distract you from the flow of my beautiful prose and narrative. This is the alarm currently being rung by some in the bell towers of technology.

There is a lively discussion and some concern that computers, the Internet and multitasking are extracting a mental price. Nicholas Carr argues in his book “The Shallows,” that the Internet, computers, Google, Twitter and the like, are making us into shallow thinkers and the neurocircuitry of our brain that long form reading creates is critical for society to function. Mr. Carr thinks that the Web, with its colored hypertext and endless abyss of bite-sized morsels of information, is making us stupid.

And although there are plenty of others in this camp, there are some who argue that not only are our brains just fine on the Internet, but they are indeed better off for it.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/in-defense-of-computers-the-internet-and-our-brains/?ref=technology

[XemaSab]

No link?

:shrug:

[Jeffersons Ghost]

10. thanks

[lazarus]

1. link?

:shrug:

[Jeffersons Ghost]

5. thanks I caught it on edit...

reading it must have made me too stupid to put in a link

[Karenina]

11. These guys had to put much more infornation into this offering to make it

"commercial." I'm not complaining, I love the studio version. But somehow the tempo and simplicity of this recording are more compelling, at least to one who was afforded those luxuries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA6jfvP1uko

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. Stoopid? I no UR but wut m I? n/t

[Xipe Totec]

3. Boring!

Next!

:evilgrin:

[blogslut]

4. Horseshit

The first thing they teach in newspaper journalism is to sum everything up in the first paragraph because most readers never make it past that first group of words.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

7. actually, it's called a "shotgun lead"...

It has origins in the US Civil War. And the reason it contained as much information as possible was because journalist needed to get the news out before the opposition cut the telegraph wire.

[blogslut]

8. I did not know that

However, I stand by my statement that most readers never make it past the first paragraph.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

9. that's probably why the lead - steeped in history - is still in use today...

In newspaper you're instructed to write something a sixth-grader can understand.

[blogslut]

12. I'll go further

Most readers never make it past the headline.

When referencing the inattention of the general newspaper-reading public I'll always refer to that scene in the film All the President's Men:

The Washington Post editors are holding a daily editorial meeting. Each editor fights to have their chosen articles printed on the front page, above the fold. The foreign editor, portrayed by the wonderful John McMartin, pushes for a human interest piece on how a series of storms in the Philippines were being blamed on the theft of a statue of Jesus. The other editors snicker and comment on the repetitiousness of 'crazy' articles. The Foreign editor then says:

"Laugh. Laugh, gentlemen. It'll be the only story everyone reads."

That line is an unfortunate truth. We may bemoan our lazy press but we are hypocrites when we fail to recognize the short attention span of the masses.

[lunatica]

6. Actually listening to Limbaugh and Beck is what makes you lose IQ points

But listening to Thom Hartmann and Rachel Maddow can restore those points.

[rocktivity]

13. The media don't like the internet because they have no control over it.

We're not buying newspapers and gluing ourselves to our TV sets, and trusting the national news media any longer.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[rucky]

14. That was heavy. I need a lolcats break.

[Lint Head]

15. This is the same sour grapes you hear from people regarding any new

technology or advances in society. It use to be things like, "The steam engine will never be replaced.", "CD's will replace vinyl?",
"Rock and roll will lead to sin!", (well that's close.), "Watching TV will make you go blind and ruin your brain." and on and on.
People that never read never do and the more intelligent will always read, write, photograph and contemplate. The naysayers make there living nay saying and life goes on.

[lurky]

16. He's a business writer. The neuroscientists interviewed all disagree.

I'm gonna go with the neuroscientists.

I think the real insight here is that you can always sell lots of books if you claim the latest new development in our culture is making our kids stupid.

[opihimoimoi]

17. internet good......stupidness bad..... its a no brainer...

[bvar22]

18. Computers and the Internet making people stupid?

.
.
.
.
.
....Well,
maybe Twitter and Facebook.