Starship Asterisk*

Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information.

Remember the kerfuffle over “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The 2008 cover story in The Atlantic by Nicholas Carr contended that the barrage of information available on the Web is changing our brains, making us all shallow and deficient in our attention span. It also raised a ruckus across the blogosphere with Web users who didn’t like to be called “stupid.” Now, as if to challenge our cultural ADD, Carr has expanded that article into a book: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.
...
For more on this, check out DISCOVER blogger Carl Zimmer’s rebuttal to the initial Carr article, “How Google Is Making Us Smarter,” as well as Vaughan Bell’s Slate article on the history of technology scares. And remember, the power of the Internet allows you to use your brain how you wish.