Nicholas Carr started noticing the change in the way he thinks a few years ago, starting with his decreased ability to focus while reading books.
When he mentioned his problem to his friends - most of them literary types - many said they're having the same problem ... the InterWeb is making them stupid!
The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader,” he wrote. “What happened?” He speculates on the answer: “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?”
Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print,” he wrote earlier this year. A pathologist who has long been on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has taken on a “staccato” quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. “I can’t read War and Peace anymore,” he admitted. “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.”
I would've told you more about it, but the article was waaay too long ;) Link
The Idiocracy of the internet.
Reading too many youtube video comments has signaled to our hindbrains that we are wastefully over-competitive compared to the idiot hordes.
And if you are looking for work, the internet/email approach is useless - people scan your data, never even see your face and don't even bother to let you know your application was received... and then you find lesser skilled/talented people in jobs you were after... it is true, the humans are getting stupider, and seem more content with it. Wanna go and buy some more gas at inflated prices in a completely false pricing scheme that does not match the actual supply potential? Everyone else is!
the only thing i've noticed in this vein is that it's hard for me to sit down and watch whole movies in one sitting. i just don't have the attention span, so i watch them in bits and pieces. so i can see that the internet certainly affects that in a person, but that shouldn't translate over to books because you can put them down whenever you want.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is true in some respect.
I do find my concentration is very easily broken, both with books and other things in general. Im thinking the way ive been using the internet for the last few years may well have contributed to this and has definitely given me cause to think (all be it in short unconnected bursts) about changing a few things.
tl;dr: i blame web2.0.
I think the Internet is making people stupider, though, in that it appears to make poor grammar, spelling, and punctuation acceptable.
I feel this impatience myself but I can and do read long articles and even whole books online. It just takes a little self-discipline.
Maybe I just like dumb chicks? :)
although, i agree with neatoramawontsendmeapassword too on the grammar, etc. however, i also believe that was in decline before the internet became big as well.....and texting has not helped......ah, well such is life.
Read fahrenheit 451.
Re: people getting more stupid-- probably not. Now we just have a huge forum in which the idiots of the world may prominently display their idiocy to all the other idiots of the world.
I've gained more vocabulary, and grammar skills.
And I dislike reading long articles on the Internet. But not because they're long, but because I dislike reading on a screen, plus I have a widescreen monitor so the text comes up a lot smaller...