Guest column: Writer’s block, bedwetting and weirdness blamed on Web

I read an Atlantic Monthly cover story recently titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” in which the author argued that Web-site browsing and other Internet habits are changing the way we read and think — and not for the better.

Author Nicholas Carr wrote that he and his friends have noticed their increasing use of the Internet for research and recreation seems to have corresponded with a marked decline in their ability to focus on written works of any appreciable length. Novels no longer hold their attention for very long, and even Web postings of more than a few paragraphs seem to trip them up.

I can identify with their experiences. In fact, I found this article very exciting because it provided me with proof of what I’ve long suspected — my scatterbrained (not to say irrational and immature) nature is merely a function of my personal Web-surfing habits. It is not, as my wife keeps insisting, indicative of a congenital cognitive disorder.

While Carr and his pals have seen their ability to read lengthy literary works suffer as a result of their Internet activities, my own Web-surfing habits have affected me in more far-reaching ways — ways normally associated with profoundly sub-average IQ scores and shockingly aberrant behavior.

For my inability to find my car keys three mornings out of five, I blame the distraction to which I’ve been driven by the videos on YouTube. What else could create such absent-mindedness in an early middle-aged man but inordinate exposure to the inane antics of watch-me-drop-these-Mentos-into-a-two-liter-bottle-of-Diet-Pepsi guy, or lip-synchs-to-Shakira fat dude? Or how about the campy heroics of Super Obama Girl (nothing says “Vote for my candidate” like a five-way staged conference call between Obama Girl, Robo Cop, Mr. Roboto, the “Biddy-biddy-biddy” robot from “Buck Rogers” and robotic former presidential contender Al Gore.)

As for my propensity for forgetting to take out the trash or failing to notice when a stoplight turns stark, crimson red, I lay the blame squarely at the feet of that bastion of buffoonery, ComedyCentral.com. Were it not for my need to supplement my regular diet of “The Daily Show” on television with periodic fake news exclusives on the Web, I’m quite certain I would finally learn to grasp the mysteries of the internal combustion engine, or at the very least the on/off switch on my radio alarm clock.

When it comes to fake news, few Web sites can beat The Onion for ribald irreverence and fundamental sick-and-wrongness (sample recent headline, “Jimmie Johnson’s car put out to stud.”) Though I visit The Onion only rarely these days, I’ve been to the site often enough to know my occasional penchant for forgetting my wife’s birthday and/or our wedding anniversary could very well be traced back to the site’s liberal use of such inane headlines as “Sweater-Vest Worn As Well As Could Be Expected,” and “Prostate A Hideous Burlesque Of Former Self.”

Now, it’s true that the Atlantic’s Nicholas Carr may not have the last word on the Internet’s effect on human consciousness. In fact, I read a CNN report recently that suggested the Web has actually enhanced certain mental faculties.

“To study what brains look like when people are searching the Internet, (a researcher) recruited two groups of people: one that had minimal computer experience and another that was Web savvy,” reads the CNN report. “Members of the technologically advanced group had more than twice the neural activation than their less experienced counterparts while searching online. Activity occurred in the region of the brain that controls decision-making and complex reasoning.”

Well, that can’t be right. That would just blow my whole theory completely out of whack.

Those researchers obviously have not spent any time scanning the reader comments at nrtoday.com. If they had, they might be justified in blaming their inability to see the blatant errors in their research on the blinding heat coming off of the comments over the Roseburg Costco controversy.



Christian Bringhurst of Winston is a former city editor and reporter for The News-Review who now teaches English, health and physical education at Camas Valley School. He can be reached at brin5186@juno.com.