Google and the Age of Information

I have long despised Google as an intellectual wasteland. Last summer, the Journal The Atlantic seemed to bear me out. The author of the article, "Is Google Making us Stoopid?", contends that he and co-workers were having difficulty with reading passages that were lengthy. He attributed this difficulty to the short snippets of information that show up in a Google search and the habit of scanning the results.

However, the January 2009 issue of Discover disputes this claim. The author contends that Google not only is not making us stupid, but that it is making us smarter. By tapping into what he calls the natural way we think and process, Google is actually making us think and learn more; not less.

Further, he tackles the texting debate, where educators fret that the use of texting shortcuts but teens is threatening literacy. He quotes a book called Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 by linguist David Crystal who writes:

"texting actually improves your literacy, as it gives you more practice in reading and writing".

I am curious as to what you all think...