I stumbled upon an old article in The Atlantic written by Nicholas Carr called “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The author points to the fact that various inventions over time have not only changed the way we communicate, they have also altered the way we think. The inventions of writing, the printing press and now the internet and other digital media fundamentally changed humanity’s access to information, but more importantly, they catalyzed changes in the physical wiring of our brains.

One of humanity’s hallmarks is its ability to adapt to a changing environment. Consider this excerpt from the aforementioned article:

The human brain is almost infinitely malleable. People used to think that our mental meshwork, the dense connections formed among the 100 billion or so neurons inside our skulls, was largely fixed by the time we reached adulthood. But brain researchers have discovered that that’s not the case. James Olds, a professor of neuroscience who directs the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University, says that even the adult mind “is very plastic.” Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. “The brain,” according to Olds, “has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions.”

So, we’re not as we once were, mentally or physically! Whether or not we’re less intelligent because of these human inventions is debatable, though it does seem clear that the further we go in this process and the more integrated these technologies are in our lives, the less willing we are to question their effect on our minds. As Carr noted: “Never has a communications system played so many roles in our lives—or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts—as the Internet does today. Yet, for all that’s been written about the Net, there’s been little consideration of how, exactly, it’s reprogramming us. The Net’s intellectual ethic remains obscure.”

Technological advances are seen, broadly speaking, as a sign of progress for the body of humanity. It’s hard to argue with such a perspective, as leisure time, productivity and output have all registered impressive gains over the last century. But what of happiness? If happiness is not an important measure of human progress, I stand corrected. But if so, then how is the internet doing?

A recent clinical study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics referenced the work of several researchers who are proposing a new phenomenon called “Facebook Depression,” which is defined as “depression that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites, such as Facebook, and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms of depression.” Perhaps this is just a symptom of the early adopters not yet having established the new balance relative to this new mode of communication or maybe it is a sign of things to come.

Is Google making us stupid?

Time will tell.