What is the Internet doing to our brains?

It has been a while since I did a post. As we enter into summer and reflect on the past year, this seems like a good time to begin our conversations again.

Here is an interesting interview from the June 2, 2010 edition of the NPR program All Things Considered. You can listen to the interview with Nicholas Carr who wrote an article in Atlantic Magazine (August 2008) entitled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” He has just released a book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, that expands on the article.

I also have provided a link for a written description of the interview that includes an excerpt from the book.

Listen to the interview

Full story and excerpt

Some questions and thoughts:

• I wonder if studies indicating that online reading gives lower comprehension than reading from a printed page applies equally to digital natives and to digital immigrants, i.e., those who have grown up using the Internet and digital devices versus those of us who have been forced to adapt to the technology.

• If this effect really is reducing the ability to become and to be a creative thinker, what should we be doing to help prevent this?

• What does this research and these ideas say to us as we move away from printed textbooks to online access of reference material for a course?

• What may be the implications of this on learning?

I look forward to your comments.