A couple days ago I wrote a post about Nicholas Carr's article for the Atlantic.  I didn't actually find that article directly but instead found it courtesy of a blogger that I just started reading who goes by the name "Drama 2.0".  He writes a response to Mr. Carr here. 

In his response he expands on Mr. Carr's concept of "Deep Reading" (a.k.a. becoming engrossed in long written works) by saying this...

A small 2006 study by the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut demonstrates what happens when individuals don't engage in "deep reading" and hints at the implications of a society in which individuals have access to large amounts of information through the internet but lack the critical thinking skills needed to analyze that information.

Researchers asked middle school students to evaluate a fake website that provided information about an endangered species that does not exist - the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. All students sent to the website fell for the hoax, all but one ranked the website as "very credible" and most were unable to locate the clues that the website was fake even after being told that it was.

This highlights what I believe to be the most frightening implication of an internet that can change our brains.

Now I completely disagree with the above statement because I don't think there is an inherent connection between "deep reading" and "critical thinking".  In fact, I really don't see how the argument can even be made.  Unless they are arguing that things should be badly written because it causes students to devote brain power to extracting the worthwhile information out of a long article which in turn leads to better critical thinking skills. 

But if that's their argument I'd say there are easier ways to teach critical thinking.

With that said I do think most people have extremely weak critical thinking skills in our society but I don't think that has to do with the Web.  In fact, I think Mr. 2.0 provides his own answer in a paragraph a little lower in the article...

In the past, I've argued that many of today's technologies and internet services have contributed to an increase in narcissism, reduction in meaningful social interactions, degradation of basic values and have even made happiness more elusive for those who seek friendship online but in reality only become more isolated and lonely.

So the problem isn't really the web as much as it is an abundance of simple, everyday narcissism.  Narcissism by definition is the enemy of intellectual curiosity because it makes a person more concerned with their self than they are with the world around them. 

Put it this way...

Researching a claim takes effort and most people don't want to put any more effort into things than they have to.  When someone puts effort into disproving a false claim they do it because they value truth more than their individual desire to be lazy.  But if they are narcissistic enough that equation gets reversed and what they want becomes more important than what is true.  At which point they'll believe anything just so they need not put any effort into disproving it.

But the web just enables narcissism it did not create it (as even the most die hard hippie will admit to the rampant narcissism of the 60s).

Anyway, going into the reasons for this narcissism is further out of the realm of tech than I want to take this blog.  Suffice to say, I don't think it has all that much to do with technology. 

Society in general seems like a much likelier culprit.