The above question is raised in a London Review of Books article titled "Smarter, Happier, More Productive," though you have to get to the end before the writer, Jim Holt, raises it. Citing a variety of books about the effects of the internet and Google, Holt describes how these new media in fact may not make us stupid. The variety of mental functions required for surfing the internet may help keep the minds of older people sharp, for instance.
But what may indeed suffer, says Holt, is memory. Instead of holding facts in our minds the way we used to, we let Google do the work. As a result when thinking creatively we don't have the same number of information bits to draw upon. New ways of looking at things just "come" to creative people with full memory banks, says Holt. At least one creative person who doesn't use a computer is Woody Allen, according to Holt. Another, the author reveals at the end of the article (though he does have a rarely-used AOL e-mail address) is Holt himself.
What Holt writes about creativity--and to me it makes sense--should be of concern to all creative people, including writers. While the internet may in some ways make us smarter, does it at the same time make us less original?
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