"Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

I found this article to be intriguing because it sought to explain the Internet's effect on this generations ability to access, analyze, utilize and interpret information. This is important to understand, especially for educators, because it could possibly change the way we teach and hold students accountable for their learning. The testimonies from "intellects" that suggest that their ability to read and comprehend significant amounts of information have been dulled due to skimming and scanning of Internet sites is troubling. From my own experiences as a Reading teacher, students can't read and comprehend longer works of literature and this has frustrated me. I remember reading and sometimes re-reading books like Jane Eyre and The Scarlet Letter, enjoying every moment as if I were there myself. Nowadays my students struggle through short stories like Langston Hughes' "Thank You, M'am." This article suggests that it may be a result of my students use of the Internet. If this is true, if our brains are being re-wired because technology, then educators need to find a way of disseminating information in chunks that can be analyzed, interpreted and applied. This is the goal of longer readings anyway.