The Internet doesn't make you stupid: but celebrity just might

Last week, the New York Times published a op-ed contribution by Steven Pinker, dismissing the possibility that the Internet is making us dumber by the day. I have to say, that when I first heard about the idea myself I was pretty dubious. The title of Nicholas Carr's essay for The Atlantic, "Is Google Making us Stupid?" was a turn-off. Like Pinker, this way of framing the matter reminded me of many earlier panics over new media forms, including but not limited to the penny press, comic books, rock and roll, Hollywood movies, and television.

But Carr's more recent effort in Wired magazine struck me as making at least a plausible argument (maybe it's just a case of getting a better headline writer). It's seems reasonable to assume that media have some sort of impact on how we think. It may not be universally bad, or good (nor does Carr argue otherwise, at least in the new article). Still, it seems worth a look into the matter, at least.

For Pinker it's all bunkum. The idea that we might be seeing negative effects on intelligence due to modern media use is belied, he thinks, by the success of modern science. Also, other intellectual activities, like philosophy, cultural criticism, and history, are "flourishing." As to the notion that media change the way our brains work: "cognitive neuroscientists" simply "roll their eyes at such talk," since it overestimates the effect that experience can have on the functioning of our brains.

Some problems with Pinker's argument here: first, it's always a mistake to use widespread social trends--like scientific work, or crime statistics, or IQ scores, or divorce rates, or measures of political cynicism--as convincing proof of anything, pro or con. So many different factors could be at play, and it's not always clear (as in the case of IQ tests) that you are necessarily measuring what you think you are measuring. Moreover, claims such as "scientific progress is dizzying," or "philosophical work is flourishing" are so subjective that they are impossible to support in any rigorous manner. As a working social scientist, I would certainly take issue with the idea that current work in my own field or in related fields like sociology or political science is particularly impressive. Much of it is focused on answering very narrow questions, based on theories developed some time ago. It is rare any more to find a thinker of the stature of Weber or Durkheim, or even Goffman or Geertz. Indeed, the state of the field seems to fit very well with Kuhn's description of "normal science." It makes for a lot of publications, but not necessarily great scientific insights.

Even more infuriating is the fact that Pinker, a tenured professor of psychology, feels no need to cite any actual empirical work to support his argument, beyond the vague gesture towards the opinions of certain unnamed cognitive neuroscientists (in marked contrast, I would note, to Carr). At best this is sloppy, but coming from a man who uses science, and the scientific method, as rhetorical tools with which to dismiss other, competing claims to truth, the better description, I think, would be hypocrisy.