Nicholas Carr, who wrote Is Google Making Us Stupid? is well known for asking the questions that no one is about the effets of computers, internet et all on our lives? We are all consuming more media, buying more gadgets, using more technology, yes but what effects are our habits having on our life?

Highlights from Is Google Making Us Stupid?

1. Deep Reading
- Is it gone?
- Is it necessary?

2. Internet = Sound Bites?
- YouTube
- The News
- Sports
- Research

3. Marshall McLuhan
- Media is NOT passive
- They shape how we think
- Internet < > contemplation ??
- Rapid streams of data and thought.
- Our expectations have changed

4. Are We Reading More?
- Maybe - but it is different
- We skim
- Efficient and immediate - not reflective

5. Clocks and electricity
- Changed the way we looked at the world
- Changed eating habits
- Changed sleeping habits

6. The Net influence
- “ When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is re-created in the Net’s image.”
- Scattered and diffuse
- Linked but leading away

7. Human Stuff
- Is ambiguity wrong?
- Is efficiency always right? Think about human relations.
- Are facts really important?
- How should decisions be made? (by the latest polls?)

Phrase to know: The “Google Generation”
The `Google generation’ is a popular phrase that refers to a generation of young people, born after 1993, that is growing up in a world dominated by the internet.

The Wikipedia defines it as “a shorthand way of referring to a generation whose first port of call for knowledge is the internet and a search engine, Google being the most popular”.

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