Why Google Is Making Us Dumber has to be the least well thought out thing I've read in days.

The entire premise of the article seems to hang on the fact that because we no longer remember trivial items that can be easily looked up on Google we are therefore not as smart.

In the authors' world intelligence is somehow defined by what trivial facts we know rather than what we do with the information we have. This is actually a fairly common argument. It has been applied to virtually every single piece of technology ever invented: Computers and Calculators are common examples. Let's take it to the extreme though. In essence Google is about writing correct? So by learning to write we have somehow made ourselves less smart because look at all the trivial crap we can write down and forget...

The quote I like:

"In fact, in the traditional education sense, we’re getting stupider, at least with certain types of tasks"

Stupider.... yeah that is how I feel after reading this article.

If you would like to join me in the abyss the actual article is here.