Is Google killing our brains?

The invention of Google has changed the way the entire world lives to say the least. I remember my parents telling me about the hours of research they had to do at library. My mom even got a set of World Encyclopedias handed down to her when she had me and my sister. Those have been collecting dust for years, and I am going to be lucky to sell them for $50 dollars when the set sells new for over $1100. One of the largest impacts of Google is the impact it has on our cognitive processes. Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”  talks about the effects of instantly accessible information on how my mind acquires and processes the information. He talks about how Google has caused people to loose the ability to absorb large amounts of information. Bruce Friedman at the University of Michigan states that, “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print”. Carr also describes studies that have proved that over the last 5 years that people rarely stay on one page for very long, and even if they save an article odds are they will never come back to it. Hedges article “America the Illiterate” is an extremely critical article on the result of Americas illiteracy. What was truly troubling about it was the amount of facts he put in. Granted, his article was extremely opinionated and biased, but his use of statistics allowed him to be so blunt and truthful. I believe the common ground of both articles is that instant information is going to change the world in ways we cannot begin to comprehend just as the printing press did in the 1800s. There was also skepticism towards the effects of books and newspapers being available to the public. We just have to wait and see. Will we enter an age of virtually infinite knowledge that will further enhance our society to a better future, or will it lead the majority of the population to be so dependent on accessible information that they the ability to learn and think?