"Dummer" by the Second

Yesterday in class we discussed an article by Nicholas Carr called “Is Google Making Us Stupid.” The consensus seemed to be that the internet is altering the way we think. In his article, Carr states that computers not only “supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.” This implies that the internet is altering our cognitive abilities. So, it is making us “stupid” in a sense. The word “stupid” is a colloquial term, and therefore used in many ways to imply many things. Here, I define the word as a weakening of the mind. As the formalities of speech and writing are being forgotten (from the reliance on spelling and grammar check), it is making our thoughts chaotic. Our “stupidity” does not come from a lack of intelligence, but rather the disuse of certain parts of our brain. I am guilty of this just as much as the next person. I admit it freely. I often find myself writing an email (or even a blog) and forgetting to address grammatical and spelling issues. For instance, I forget to capitalize the first letter of a sentence on a regular basis. There are programs out there that automatically do this for me so why should I remember it myself?

The wonders of Word include autocorrect features and spell/grammar check. Both of these programs allow syntactical errors to go almost unnoticed. Since we are no longer forced to pick up a dictionary and manually discover the correct spelling of a word, the corrected version is forgotten. When a word is flagged as misspelled, a red line appears under it. To correct the error, one simply needs to select the proper word from a list of suggestions. Search engines such as Google also have a spell check feature. When a word is misspelled, corrections are suggested with the phrase “Do you mean: ________.” Due to this convenience, I find myself misspelling the same words over and over again having never learned the proper way. It is no longer necessary to remember how to spell. This autocorrect element creates bad habits that are carried into other writing situations (i.e. papers or emails). The simplicity and ease of spell check features are meant to assist the writing process, but they are in fact impairing it. Such programs are creating the problems with coherent thought processing, but the internet is perpetuating them.

Upon discussing my difficulties with my friends, I soon realized that this is a common problem. Emails and instant messages, in particular, harbor numerous spelling and grammatical errors. Many of these programs lack spell check options so mistakes, which have become habits while using such devices, go unnoticed. This problem is more than just simply misspelling words here and there. It seems that these devices are hindering our ability to think cohesively. With grammar and spelling forgotten, our sentences are becoming fragmented and unclear. These ambiguous sentences reflect our inability to correctly complete a thought. Here is one example of an extreme case. The errors within this “break-up letter” are hard to ignore. Thoughts are incoherent and very difficult to understand. While funny, this example demonstrates how the bad habits that internet has taught us are changing the way we think. Because we are so used to disregarding spelling and grammar, we no longer know how to articulate our thoughts.

One of my professors stated to his class that “you do not need to know how to spell to get a PhD. All you need is a good spell-checker.” This singular statement accurately reveals how our thought process is being changed. Due to advances of the internet, we are no longer concerned with spelling and syntax. Instead of spending time on these details, we allocate them to machines. These technologies are causing us to lose the knowledge associated with spelling and grammar because it is now stored as a program on our computers.

One important factor that we are forgetting is that we are smarter that the machines we trust to correct us. When Word fails, it can entirely change the meaning of the sentence. This actually happened to Kara Thompson. Word changed “under-served” to “undeserved” thereby confusing two completely separate thoughts. Our dependency on spelling and grammar checking leads us to believe that such programs are always correct, when, in fact, they are not. This reliance, in itself, is another symptom of our growing “stupidity.”