• http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Nicholas Carr's new piece in The Atlantic (July/Aug 2008) raises provoking questions about the effect of the internet on human cognition and progress.  He notes the grave warnings that accompanied major innovations of the past: Socrates fear of writing (it eliminates the need to remember anything); fifteenth-century worries about the printing press (undermines religious authority, spreads debauchery and dissent); scientific approaches to manufacturing in the early twentieth century (turns man into machine).  So what do we gain and lose with this new technology?  Are we really becoming "pancake" people, stretched wide and thin, capable of finding anything, yet knowing nothing?  Are we losing our abilities to read (and more importantly, to think) carefully, critically and deeply? Are we embracing artificial intelligence at the expense of human intelligence?

And fittingly, the link to this article does not yet exist.  In a nod to old fashioned magazine publishing, you can only get this article at your local newsstand right now.  That is, if you even have one of those any more. 

For now, you can check out Nicholas Carr's blog http://www.roughtype.com and his newest book, The Big Switch, which explores these concerns.