reassurance from today’s vibrant Web culture if the general surfing public, which is becoming more at home in this new medium, displayed a growing propensity for literate, critical thought. But take a careful look at the many blogs, post comments, Facebook pages, and online conversations that characterize today’s Web 2.0 environment…This type of content generation, this method of ‘writing,’ is not only sub-literate, it may actually undermine the literary impulse…Hours spent texting and e-mailing, according to this view, do not translate into improved writing or reading skills.” —Patrick Tucker, director of communications, The World Future Society and senior editor, The Futurist magazine

“By its very success of making information easy to find, Google makes us less intelligent by making us rely less on our brainpower—we use less analytical skills, less reliance on memory, and in the end take intellectual shortcuts that result in us exercising our brainpower less.” —Steve Ridder, enterprise architect, Cisco

“While this is a difficult question to answer in terms of ‘human intelligence’ (whatever that is) or IQ, there is little doubt that many important intellectual skills are likely to atrophy as we become more and more dependent upon Internet resources. Reflection and depth may be sacrificed to speed, for example.” —Steven Metalitz, partner, Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp

“Google won’t make us more stupid on its own, but the societal shift toward always-on, Wi-Fi-based computing will. The death of serious reading and the decline of the newspaper industry are further indicators that we are moving away from a logos-centric culture to an image-based lifestyle. This will naturally result in weakened critical thinking skills, as people adjust to being awash in evocative imagery but required to do little or no thinking. Emotional manipulation will become the highest art of commerce and politics which will all become little more than exaggerated entertainment. Gradually, we will forget what it means to be human.” —Daniel Weiss, senior analyst for media and sexuality at Focus on the Family Action

“Access to information can lead to better decision-making, or analysis paralysis depending on the user’s ability to synthesize complex information. Most people actually make decisions based