The Shallows (32 page)

31.
Maggie Jackson,
Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2008), 79.

32.
Karin Foerde, Barbara J. Knowlton, and Russell A. Poldrack, “Modulation of Competing Memory Systems by Distraction,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, 103, no. 31 (August 1, 2006): 11778–83; and “Multi-Tasking Adversely Affects Brain’s Learning,” University of California press release, July 7, 2005.

33.
Christopher F. Chabris, “You Have Too Much Mail,”
Wall Street Journal
, December 15, 2008. The italics are Chabris’s.

34.
Sav Shrestha and Kelsi Lenz, “Eye Gaze Patterns While Searching vs. Browsing a Website,”
Usability News
, 9, no. 1 (January 2007), www.surl. org/usabilitynews/91/eyegaze.asp.

35.
Jakob Nielsen, “F-Shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content,”
Alertbox
, April 17, 2006, www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html.

36.
Jakob Nielsen, “How Little Do Users Read?,”
Alertbox
, May 6, 2008, www.useit.com/alertbox/percent-text-read.html.

37.
Harald Weinreich, Hartmut Obendorf, Eelco Herder, and Matthias Mayer, “Not Quite the Average: An Empirical Study of Web Use,”
ACM Transactions on the Web
, 2, no. 1 (2008).

38.
Jakob Nielsen, “How Users Read on the Web,”
Alertbox
, October 1, 1997, www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html.

39.
“Puzzling Web Habits across the Globe,”
ClickTale
blog, July 31, 2008, www.clicktale.com/2008/07/31/puzzling-web-habits-across-the-globe-part-1/.

40.
University College London, “Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future,” January 11, 2008, www.ucl.ac.uk/slais/research/ciber/down loads/ggexecutive.pdf.

41.
Merzenich, “Going Googly.”

42.
Ziming Liu, “Reading Behavior in the Digital Environment,”
Journal of Documentation
, 61, no. 6 (2005): 700–712.

43.
Shawn Green and Daphne Bavelier, “Action Video Game Modifies Visual Selective Attention,”
Nature
, 423 (May 29, 2003): 534–37.

44.
Elizabeth Sillence, Pam Briggs, Peter Richard Harris, and Lesley Fishwick, “How Do Patients Evaluate and Make Use of Online Health Information?,”
Social Science and Medicine
, 64, no. 9 (May 2007): 1853–62.

45.
Klingberg,
Overflowing Brain
, 115–24.

46.
Small and Vorgan,
iBrain
, 21.

47.
Sam Anderson, “In Defense of Distraction,”
New York
, May 25, 2009.

48.
Quoted in Don Tapscott,
Grown Up Digital
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009), 108–9.

49.
Quoted in Jackson,
Distracted
, 79–80.

50.
Quoted in Sharon Begley and Janeen Interlandi, “The Dumbest Generation? Don’t Be Dumb,”
Newsweek
, June 2, 2008.

51.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Letters from a Stoic
(New York: Penguin Classics, 1969), 33.

52.
Patricia M. Greenfield, “Technology and Informal Education: What Is Taught, What Is Learned,”
Science
, 323, no. 5910 (January 2, 2009): 69–71.

53.
Eyal Ophir, Clifford Nass, and Anthony D. Wagner, “Cognitive Control in Media Multitaskers,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, August 24, 2009, www.pnas.org/content/ early/2009/08/21/ 0903620106.full.pdf. See also Adam Gorlick, “Media Multitaskers Pay Mental Price, Stanford Study Shows,”
Stanford Report
, August 24, 2009, http://news.stanford.edu/ news/2009/august24/ multitask-research-study-082409.html.

54.
Michael Merzenich, interview with the author, September 11, 2009.

55.
James Boswell,
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.
(London: Bell, 1889), 331–32.

a digression
ON THE BUOYANCY OF IQ SCORES

1.
Don Tapscott,
Grown Up Digital
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009), 291.

2.
College Board, “PSAT/NMSQT Data & Reports,” http://professionals.col legeboard.com/data-reports-research/psat.

3.
Naomi S. Baron,
Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 202.

4.
David Schneider, “Smart as We Can Get?,”
American Scientist
, July–August 2006.

5.
James R. Flynn, “Requiem for Nutrition as the Cause of IQ Gains: Raven’s Gains in Britain 1938–2008,”
Economics and Human Biology
, 7, no. 1 (March 2009): 18–27.

6.
Some contemporary readers may find Flynn’s choice of words insensitive. He explains, “We are in a transitional period in which the term ‘mentally retarded’ is being replaced by the term ‘mentally disabled’ in the hope of finding words with a less negative connotation. I have retained the old term for clarity and because history has shown that negative connotations are simply passed on from one label to another.” James R. Flynn,
What Is Intelligence? Beyond the Flynn Effect
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 9–10.

7.
Ibid., 9.

8.
Ibid., 172–73.

9.
“The World Is Getting Smarter,”
Intelligent Life
, December 2007. See also Matt Nipert, “Eureka!”
New Zealand Listener
, October 6–12, 2007.

10.
Patricia M. Greenfield, “Technology and Informal Education: What Is Taught, What Is Learned,”
Science
, 323, no. 5910 (January 2, 2009): 69–71.

11.
Denise Gellene, “IQs Rise, but Are We Brighter?,”
Los Angeles Times
, October 27, 2007.

Eight
THE CHURCH OF GOOGLE

1.
For an account of Taylor’s life, see Robert Kanigel,
One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency
(New York: Viking, 1997).

2.
Frederick Winslow Taylor,
The Principles of Scientific Management
(New York: Harper, 1911), 25.

3.
Ibid., 7.

4.
Google Inc. Press Day Webcast, May 10, 2006, http://google.client.shareholder.com/ Visitors/event/build2/ MediaPresentation.cfm? MediaID=20263&Player=1.

5.
Marissa Mayer, “Google I/O ’08 Keynote,” YouTube, June 5, 2008, www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x0cAzQ7PVs.

6.
Bala Iyer and Thomas H. Davenport, “Reverse Engineering Google’s Innovation Machine,”
Harvard Business Review
, April 2008.

7.
Anne Aula and Kerry Rodden, “Eye-Tracking Studies: More than Meets the Eye,”
Official Google Blog
, February 6, 2009, http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ 2009/02/eye- tracking-studies-more-than-meets.html.

8.
Helen Walters, “Google’s Irene Au: On Design Challenges,”
BusinessWeek
, March 18, 2009.

9.
Mayer, “Google I/O ’08 Keynote.”

10.
Laura M. Holson, “Putting a Bolder Face on Google,”
New York Times
, February 28, 2009.

11.
Neil Postman,
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
(New York: Vintage, 1993), 51.

12.
Ken Auletta,
Googled: The End of the World as We Know It
(New York: Penguin, 2009), 22.

13.
Google, “Company Overview,” undated, www.google.com/corporate.

14.
Kevin J. Delaney and Brooks Barnes, “For Soaring Google, Next Act Won’t Be So Easy,”
Wall Street Journal
, June 30, 2005.

15.
Google, “Technology Overview,” undated, www.google.com/corporate/tech.html.

16.
Academy of Achievement, “Interview: Larry Page,” October 28, 2000, www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/pag0int-1.

17.
John Battelle,
The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
(New York: Portfolio, 2005), 66–67.

18.
Ibid.

19.
See Google, “Google Milestones,” undated, www.google.com/corporate/history.html.

20.
Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,”
Computer Networks
, 30 (April 1, 1998): 107–17.

21.
Walters, “Google’s Irene Au.”

22.
Mark Zuckerberg, “Improving Your Ability to Share and Connect,”
Facebook
blog, March 4, 2009, http://blog.facebook.com/ blog.php?post=57822962130.

23.
Saul Hansell, “Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine,”
New York Times
, June 3, 2007.

24.
Brennon Slattery, “Google Caffeinates Its Search Engine,”
PC World
, August 11, 2009, www.pcworld.com/article/169989.

25.
Nicholas Carlson, “Google Co-Founder Larry Page Has Twitter-Envy,”
Silicon Alley Insider
, May 19, 2009, www.businessinsider.com/google-cofounder-larry-page-has-twitter-envy-2009-5.

26.
Kit Eaton, “Developers Start to Surf Google Wave, and Love It,”
Fast Company
, July 21, 2009, www.fastcompany.com/blog/ kit-eaton/technomix/ developers-start-surf-google-wave-and-love-it.

27.
Doug Caverly, “New Report Slashes YouTube Loss Estimate by $300M,”
WebProNews
, June 17, 2009, www.webpronews.com/topnews/ 2009/06/17/new- report-slashes-youtube-loss-estimate-by-300m.

28.
Richard MacManus, “Store 100%—Google’s Golden Copy,”
ReadWriteWeb
, March 5, 2006, www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ store_100_googl.php.

29.
Jeffrey Toobin, “Google’s Moon Shot,”
New Yorker
, February 5, 2007.

30.
Jen Grant, “Judging Book Search by Its Cover,”
Official Google Blog
, November 17, 2005, http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/judging-book-search-by-its-cover.html.

31.
See U.S. Patent no. 7,508,978.

32.
Google, “History of Google Books,” undated, http://books.google.com/googlebooks/history.html.

33.
Authors Guild, “Authors Guild Sues Google, Citing ‘Massive Copyright Infringement,’” press release, September 20, 2005.