Is the Internet making us stupid? This worry has been raised by several authors, most recently Nick Carr in his new book "The Shallows" (more on the book some other time). 

While humans fear to become more stupid, however, computers seem to get smarter: Clive Thompson presents "Watson" in a long NYT Magazine feature. Watson is a supercomputer developed by IBM; and he has been programmed to play, and often win, the TV game "Jeopardy". Interesting about Watson is the approach he takes, which apparently mimicks human brains: Instead of trying to compute one right answer to a question (which is what for example Wolfram Alpha is doing), Watson applies hundreds of different algorithms to come up with different possible answers within seconds - and then uses another set of algorithms to rank the answers for plausibility.

But it's not just computers; humans are also not getting dumber, as Carr argues, but indeed smarter, says Jamais Cascio in an article for The Atlantic. He proclaims the "Nöocene epoch", derived from the concept of the Nöosphere, the idea of a "collective consciousness created by the deepening interaction of human minds". The vastness of digital information combined with smart filters will allow us to overcome the "technology-induced ADD" that authors like Carr fear, and allow us to analyze complex problems in short time frames. Pharmacology is helping, too: Cascio claims that the sleep disorder drug Provigil has actually helped him think faster and more focused.