As more and more students have ready access to the internet, doing “old fashioned research” in the library with encyclopedias and reference books has become a thing of the past. In the July/August 2008 issue of Atlantic Monthly, author, Nicholas Carr alleges in his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that internet search engines have changed the way we think and how we process text. Carr states that high speed search engines have resulted in “high speed” thinking that causes users to skim and scan text  without really devoting much attention to careful or critical reading. Carr says that the net has become the “conduit of information” for him. He extols the benefits of speedy access to info but laments the “text restlessness” that he has developed as a result of his “forages into the web’s info-thickets.” He says that he has lost patience with reading longer text and finds himself preferring to jump from link to link in his quest for quick, easily accessible knowledge.

Like Carr, students who use the internet for research seek information by skimming or bouncing from page to page, rarely stopping to read in depth or process info to any great depth. This high speed behavior is referred to as “power browsing” in technology circles. Individuals scan, flip and flick their way through digital content to quickly find the information they are seeking. Librarians report that more and more students are using online tools to do research and using print materials less and less.

While skimming and scanning are certainly good tools for readers to use, students must also know how to make deeper connections, ask relevant questions and make comparisons with the various sources of information they find on the internet. Often students perform a search, scan the related entries and then print off a mountain of irrelevant pages before determining where their research objectives. Teachers must help students not only learn how to navigate the internet successfully, but must also teach them how to critically analyze, organize, and compare what they find for relevance, authoritativeness and accuracy.

Students also need to be taught how to set an appropriate focus and purpose for their reading. Students need to understand that while the internet is fun and relevant, reading is done for many different reasons – only one of which is to locate relevant information. Teachers must model not only reading for information but also reading for enjoyment as well. Unless we model these skills, Carr is right that adults of the future, might lose the ability to appreciate the beauty of just settling down with a good book and the emotional highs that one gets from identifying with the characters in a good novel. Carr, Nicholas (2008). “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Atlantic Monthly, July-August, 2008. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google retrieved January 2,  2009.