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Over at The Atlantic Monthly, a provocative piece by Nicholas Carr titled "Is Google Making Us Stoopid?" discusses how the web has changed the way we interact with information. He argues that the hyper-multitasking of the Internet has made people less introspective, reflective and thoughtful. Rather than simply blame the Internet, Carr also argues that the way we use the technologies is having a profound affect on how we think and act.

As usual, Carr is onto something. And I think this quote in the article describing a conversation that Nietzsche had with a friend about the use of a typewriter changing his writing, captures it perfectly.

“You are right,” Nietzsche replied, “our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” Under the sway of the machine, writes the German media scholar Friedrich A. Kittler, Nietzsche’s prose “changed from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style.”

But Carr also misses some important factors that should have been discussed in his article. Firstly, these changes aren't anything new. Each time a transformative piece of technology enters our lives, it influences our cognitive abilities in unusual ways. The discovery of the printing press changed the nature of knowledge forever (and us too) as did more recent and less dramatic inventions like the typewriter, the radio, the television and now the Internet. Is there something dramatically different about the Internet?

Well, I believe there is. It is not that we have immense amounts of information at our finger tips. Most people aren't journalists like Carr and that information doesn't matter as much. The difference is that we're connected with each other so much more. Our lives are a perpetual dinner party. We're in multiple conversations, continuously moving between circles of friends and the bar. Activity on the Internet resembles how we digest and exchange information when we mingle at parties.

The point being that it is a dinner party because we're connected to each other. Its not Google or the Internet that's making us stupid, it is the fact that we maybe spending more time at virtual dinner parties than we should.

Some of the more controversial responses to Carr's article include:

• Techdirty: There's Stupidity Somewhere
• Mathewingram: I Hate the internet
• The Rehearsal Studio: Learning to be Stupid
• No Man's Blog: It's Not Google That's Making Us Stupid

Don't let this opportunity to be a part of something incredibly special go by. Pangea Day is a special, global event to bring the world together through film on one day. The idea is to help people see themselves in others and in their stories. Starting at 18:00 GMT on May 10, 2008, locations in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro will be linked for a live program of powerful films, live music, and visionary speakers. The entire program will be broadcast – in seven languages – to millions of people worldwide through the internet, television, and mobile phones.

Participate online or better still through one of the community events. You won't regret it. You can also show your support on Facebook, MySpace or YouTube. I'm proud to say that Avenue A | Razorfish played a small role in the Pangea Day effort by designing and building the website. We talk a lot about social media and online communities, well there's nothing more special than showing we're part of a global community that cares.

These were on the wall of the ballroom where the Zuckerberg keynote was going on. Somehow they seemed far more interesting than the actual keynote. Find more on that at News.com I can't read the url for the second poster. If you know the author please let me know. I'll update the post to include the link. Eyescience is behind the first one.

Here at Avenue A | Razorfish, we're doing our little bit to help the environment. Check out the entertaining Wild Snowman and do your bit too. The environment is ours, we all need to do something to protect it. The video clip ends with a list of environmentally friendly causes.

One small step for athletes, one giant leap for bloggers. That's what I thought upon reading about the IOC's decision to allow athletes to blog at the Beijing Olympics. Here's the rationale in the IOC's own words - "The IOC considers blogging...as a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism," the IOC said. However, they don't allow audio or video blogging and references to third parties is prohibited. Apparently, the IOC is eager to protect rights holders as Games broadcasting contracts are worth several billion euros.

I was invited me to participate in the "8 things you didn't know about me" party by Susan Scrupski. Thank you! The rules are fairly straightforward - 1. Link to your tagger and post these rules. 2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself. 3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names. 4. Let them know they've been tagged. 

At the IDEA 2007 summit, I heard the Director of Marketing for Blendtec talk about how an unknown brand getting phenomenal brand exposure thanks to one good idea, a digital camera, youtube and staying true to its brand. Blendtec launched the Will it blend campaign on YouTube a year ago to promote its blenders. These ads depicted the CEO (with all his quirkiness) demoing different products being blended. By products I mean cellphones, iphones, ipods, rakes and lots more. Millions of views later, there advertising budget is still very small but their sales have sky rocketed.


Will this work for everyone? Of course not. We don't have enough patience to watch more blending. Good ideas can only be used once or twice. But what matters is that there's a small cost to experimentation and when the experiment appears to be succeeding, that's when you shouldn't stop but keep doing more.

Barack Obama has announced is technology vision. It's a PDF document and fortunately not a very long one. In addition to all the usual stuff like enacting net neutrality laws, speeding up broadband deployment, improving math and science education and letting in more foreign tech workers, he also talks about wikis and blogs.

He'd like to employ a chief technology officer for the country (now that's new!) who's responsibility will be to make government more transparent and visible using the best technology in the market. This means live streaming of executive branch government meetings, public wikis through which information can be shared between government employees and the public and blogs for communication as well. Nice ideas, I wonder if they will ever get implemented though. Is government ready for openness? Visit News.com for more on the story and hop over to ObamaForTechnology.

The Ted.com clip below showcases a new game called Spore by Will Wright, the game designer behind the Sim City games. Spore is unique in that everything you create, whether it be an animal, building or island, gets uploaded to a central database and shared with other users. Your terrain and all the other creatures on it, are built by other users as you navigate the universe, fight aliens and evolve. Imagine Sim City meets Second Life and that's what Spore is.

Playing the game forces you to take a longer term view of life as your creature lives much longer than a human being does. And with the game changing each time you play because of the social media influence, you're guaranteed an engaging experience each time. Wright calls the game an imagination amplifier. I'd agree with that.