IsGoogleMakingUsStupid? Dave,stop.Stop,willyou?Stop,Dave.Will youstop,Dave?” So the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bowman in a famous andweirdlypoignantscenetowardtheendof StanleyKubrick’s2001:ASpaceOdyssey. Bowman,havingnearlybeensenttoadeep space death by the malfunctioning machine, is calmly, coldly disconnecting the memory circuits thatcontrolitsartificial”brain.“Dave,mymindis going,”HALsays,forlornly.“Icanfeelit.Ican feelit.” Icanfeelit,too.OverthepastfewyearsI’vehad an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming thememory.Mymindisn’tgoingsofarasIcan tellbutit’schanging.I’mnotthinkingthewayI usedtothink.IcanfeelitmoststronglywhenI’m reading.Immersingmyselfinabookoralengthy articleusedtobeeasy.Mymindwouldget caughtupinthenarrativeortheturnsofthe argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through longstretchesofprose.That’srarelythecase anymore. Now my concentration often starts to driftaftertwoorthreepages.Igetfidgety,lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.IfeelasifI’malwaysdraggingmywayward brainbacktothetext.Thedeepreadingthatused to come naturally has become a struggle. IthinkIknowwhat’sgoingon.Formorethana decadenow,I’vebeenspendingalotoftime online, searching and surfing and sometimes addingtothegreatdatabasesoftheInternet.The Webhasbeenagodsendtomeasawriter. Researchthatoncerequireddaysinthestacksor periodicalroomsoflibrariescannowbedonein minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicksonhyperlinks,andI’vegotthetelltalefact orpithyquoteIwasafter.EvenwhenI’mnot working,I’maslikelyasnottobeforaginginthe Web’sinfothickets’readingandwritingemails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping fromlinktolinktolink.(Unlikefootnotes,to which they’re sometimes likened, hyperlinks don’tmerelypointtorelatedworks;theypropel you toward them.) Forme,asforothers,theNetisbecominga universalmedium,theconduitformostofthe informationthatflowsthroughmyeyesandears andintomymind.Theadvantagesofhaving immediate access to such an incredibly rich store ofinformationaremany,andthey’vebeenwidely described and duly applauded. “The perfect recall ofsiliconmemory,”Wired’sCliveThompsonhas written, “can be an enormous boon to thinking.” Butthatbooncomesataprice. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed outinthe1960s,mediaarenotjustpassive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought,buttheyalsoshapetheprocessof thought. AndwhattheNetseemstobedoingischipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.Mymindnowexpectstotakein informationthewaytheNetdistributesit:ina swiftlymovingstreamofparticles.OnceIwasa scubadiverintheseaofwords.NowIzipalong thesurfacelikeaguyonaJetSki. I’mnottheonlyone.WhenImentionmytroubles with reading to friends and acquaintances – literarytypes,mostofthem,manysaythey’re having similar experiences. The more they use theWeb,themoretheyhavetofighttostay focusedonlongpiecesofwriting.Someofthe bloggersIfollowhavealsobegunmentioningthe phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he hasstoppedreadingbooksaltogether.“Iwasalit majorincollege,andusedtobe[a]voracious bookreader,”hewrote.“Whathappened?”He speculatesontheanswer:“WhatifIdoallmy readingonthewebnotsomuchbecausethe wayIreadhaschanged,i.e.I’mjustseeking convenience,butbecausethewayITHINKhas changed?” Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described howtheInternethasalteredhismentalhabits.“I nowhavealmosttotallylosttheabilitytoread andabsorbalongisharticleontheweborin print,”hewroteearlierthisyear.Apathologist whohaslongbeenonthefacultyofthe University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has takenona“staccato”quality,reflectingtheway hequicklyscansshortpassagesoftextfrom manysourcesonline.“Ican’treadWarandPeace anymore,”headmitted.“I’velosttheabilitytodo that.Evenablogpostofmorethanthreeorfour paragraphsistoomuchtoabsorb.Iskimit.” Anecdotesalonedon’tprovemuch.Andwestill await the long term neurological and psychological experiments that will provide a definitive picture of how Internet use affects cognition. But a recently published study of online research habits, conducted by scholars from University College London, suggests that wemaywellbeinthemidstofaseachangein thewaywereadandthink. Screen/1 WhattheInternetisdoing toourbrains The Atlantic Online July/August 2008 Nicholas Carr Keytext