Reading this will make you smarter, say experts

Jake Widman
Tuesday, 23 February 2010 11:09

IT Industry - Market

A survey of nearly 900 researchers, educators, and other observers of the technological and social scene revealed that more than three-quarters of them think the Internet is enhancing human intelligence, and most think it's improving reading and writing.

The Future of the Internet survey was conducted by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center.

The researchers asked 895 experts a series of five "tension pair" questions -- in other words, questions to which they were asked to choose between two contradictory answers.

Given the choice between "By 2020, people's use of the Internet has enhanced human intelligence; as people are allowed unprecedented access to more information, they become smarter and make better choices" and "By 2020, people's use of the Internet has not enhanced human intelligence and it could even be lowering the IQs of most people who use it a lot," 76% chose the former answer.

Both statements also made reference to last summer's cover story in The Atlantic by Nicholas Carr, entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

The survey participants -- including Carr -- were asked to explain their answers, and Carr continues to argue that "what the Net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence, away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence. The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking."

For the replies of Google employees, see Page 2.