All jokes aside, this question has generated a heated debate in techs academic circles, fires that are being further fanned by Nicholas Carrs new book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.
Shallow is the operative word here. Tech pundit Carr posits that modern technology encourages superficial grazing that, over generations, can rewire the brain to deleterious effect. Here its easy to picture a race of Homer Simpsons bumbling through life. (The Internet is … mmm, doughnuts!) But Carr is serious.
One big triumph of human culture was the learned ability to pay attention to one thing for a long time, which the arrival of the book helped promote, says Carr, calling in from a Colorado vacation. (Carr hasnt yet developed the habit of switching off his cellphone while on break.) But the Internet is about skimming and scanning and de-emphasizes our shifting into deeply attentive modes.
As a species, we are naturally in love with distractions, he says. This technology is taking us back to a more primitive state. This is not a good thing.
Enhanced intelligence
Before anyone heaves a PC out the window and retreats to a cave, let it be known that Carr has his detractors. Their point in a nutshell (in case youve got a call coming in): From the printing press to television, all new technologies arrive with dire warnings of societal doom (That TV will rot your brain! anyone?), and yet humanity sifts out the good and marches on. And so we shall again.
Of course the Internet is distracting, but now is the time when we begin to develop our social responses to what weve got, says Clay Shirky, a frequent sparring partner for Carr and author of the new book (and antipode to Carrs thesis) Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age.
Nick is saying that in the face of an abundance of information, we are powerless and will just stay distracted all day long, he says. But we have choices. Personally, I have no instant messaging, I often turn off Twitter and I never answer calls unless I know whos calling.
Carr thinks Shirky is being optimistic. I hope Clay is right about society reacting to this threat, he says. But if you look at the last 10 years, there is no sign that we are actively trying to push technology in the direction of increasing our attentiveness.
What do tech titans say?
If youre looking for a shortcut to the scorecard in this bout, Lee Rainie is holding it.
No question that Carr is driving one of the biggest debates about technology next to privacy issues, says Rainie, director of the Pew Internet amp; American Life Project, which recently surveyed 895 tech titans about Carrs thesis and other topics. An overwhelming 75% believed that by 2020, peoples use of the Internet will have enhanced human intelligence.
The consensus was that new skills will be elevated, such as our ability to hunt for information and look for patterns in broad data, says Rainie, who, like many of the technorati, started pondering this issue after reading Carrs opening salvo, a 2008 article in The Atlantic provocatively titled Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Our respondents overwhelmingly felt the answer to that headline was No, Rainie says. People can make better decisions because of the Web, but it will be up to them to stay focused to avoid distraction.
Can we do it?
No problem, says Rosie Navarro, 43, of San Francisco. As an executive assistant to a management consulting firm CEO, she feels so much more productive as a result of always being connected, whether thats answering a quick question by e-mail or just knowing Im caught up.
To keep from feeling too tethered to technology, Navarro sets personal ground rules that include no PDAs out on tables while meeting girlfriends or her daughter for dinner.
Being connected is just part of the way we communicate today, and I like how, with some limits, it makes me more organized with my time, she says.
But not everyone can wrestle the tech beast into submission.
Houston lawyer Jeffrey Gilbert, 27, says he feels naked without his BlackBerry, even to the point of keeping it by his side while watching TV at home.
My mind is always going, and whether thats good or bad I dont know, its just the way it is, he says. There always seems to be something else to look at. For me, it means I retain information that I need immediately, and the rest I tend to forget.
Holden Lewis, 47, of Jupiter, Fla., can relate. As the mortgage reporter for Bankrate.com, he is so consumed with data that the Web essentially becomes an extension of his brain, a silicon repository of numbers and trends that can be called up at a moments notice.
I just dont remember things as easily these days, because I know I can find them right away online, he says. I wonder how many of us today know our best friends phone number? In the 80s, we all did. Now, we dont have to.
Human brain adapts
To try to give his brain an old-school workout while slowing life down, Lewis recently dived into Marcel Prousts epic 3,000-plus-page novel, In Search of Lost Time. He made it through only a few hundred pages before distractions set in. But the experience was profound. I remember really being able to feel time slow down. It was great, he says. But then it just sped up again.
Most tech pundits dont dispute that our digital times are changing the way our brains operate, much the same way our noggins had to adapt when, in the mid-15th century, the printing press began making reading available to the masses. So what they prefer to discuss is our behavioral response to the 21st centurys equivalent of Gutenbergs Renaissance-era creation.
What were really talking about here is a cultural argument, questions such as whether well read fewer novels now that information is bite-size, says Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide, which explores the act of decision-making at a neurological level.
There are trade-offs to everything, he says. Walking through New York City is just as distracting as surfing the Web, so we take a break from it and hang out in Central Park. Similarly, we have to do better at policing ourselves with technology, of turning things off so we can maximize the upside.
Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker has established a rigid regimen for keeping technology in place, including closing e-mail during busy workdays and checking his PDA only when that time would be otherwise wasted, such as standing in line for a bus.
The preposterous conclusion
One should be cautious when interfacing with anything fire, power saws, garden tools, says Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window Into Human Nature. The fallacy is leaping from the common-sense idea that you should enjoy the advantages of technology while minimizing the disadvantages, to the preposterous conclusion that technology is inherently dangerous.
In a sense, Baby Boomers who grew up without the Web and cellphones are safe. For them, the notion of curling up with a good book remains familiar, as is the sensation of being unreachable by phone.
But the Net babies, or Gen Y, are less likely to see reasons to tune technology out, says Michael Merzenich, a neuroscientist with the University of San Francisco.
More and more young people seem to be disconnected from the physical world, he says. Theres less time at play in the park, and more time absorbed in devices. It would be helpful if they knew that what theyre doing does impact their neurology.
UCLA psychiatrist Gary Small shares that concern about todays twentysomethings. He says that only when our tech addiction yields disastrous results does society snap into action as was the case with texting while driving, which many states now outlaw. But when it comes to our personal behavior, its all up to the individual.
Many young people are often good at high-tech multitasking at the expense of social skills such as face-to-face contact and reading non-verbal cues, says Small, author with Gigi Vorgan of iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind.
So for every stat you see about how video games can improve certain mental facilities, Small says, we should all be aware of the importance of taking breaks, turning off devices and simply talking in person.
Sarah Parks, 28, a physicians assistant from Watertown, Mass., says she has mixed feelings about growing up bombarded by technology.
On the one hand, its great for doing things like paying bills while youre getting your hair done, but it can also be annoying to go to dinner with a friend and see theyre more interested in their e-mail than talking to you, she says. So I try to pull myself away from my devices whenever I can.
USFs Merzenich applauds such focus. Any kind of noise in the brain is negative, with long-term impacts on human health, he says. My advice is simple: Make sure what youre doing online is productive, and dont forget the real world. Go to the park every now and then and just look around. Thats closer to what the human mind was designed for, anyway.
Thats precisely the tech detox approach used by Michael Leyden, 70, of Charleston, Ill., a retired science teacher who acknowledges spending hours online every day, digging up interesting bits of research to send to former colleagues and friends.
If Im online and see something else that grabs my attention, Im off down the rabbit hole. I love it, he says. But Im retired. I dont have the pressure younger people do, of having to constantly check for messages or respond to requests for information. When I want to go mow the lawn, I mow the lawn.
More people should just get up and go mow the lawn, says Carr, a Paul Revere for our Net age.
Im a technophile and I struggle with this as much as anyone, he says. Im now off a lot of social networking sites, and thats really allowed me to regain a calmer mind. But its still tough.
Ultimately, we are all free agents and can make choices, he says. If you cherish those solitary moments, theres nothing else to do but restrain yourself.
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