Most experts agree that Google won't make us stupid. Contrary to what Nicholas Carr

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has written in the Atlantic. Indeed, 76 per cent of technology stakeholders and critics interviewed by the Pew Research Centre’s Internet & American Life Project and the Imagining the Internet Centre at Elon University believe that the internet and search engines will enhance human intelligence by 2020. The centre interviewed over 800 experts about what they think the internet will look like in ten years.

“Google will make us more informed. The smartest person in the world could well be behind a plow in China or India. Providing universal access to information will allow such people to realise their full potential, providing benefits to the entire world.” — Hal Varian, Google, chief economist

“Intelligence is no an undifferentiated whole. No doubt we will become worse at doing some things (‘more stupid’) requiring rote memory of information that is now available though Google. But with this capacity freed, we may (and probably will) be capable of more advanced integration and evaluation of information (‘more intelligent’).” — Stephen Downes, National Research Council, Canada

“The problem isn't Google; it's what it helps us find. For some, Google will let them find useless content that does not challenge their minds. But for others, Google will lead them to expect answers to questions, to explore the world, to see and think for themselves.” — Esther Dyson, internet expert and investor

“Google is already an adjunct to memory.

For example, I have a hunch about

something, need facts to support, and Google comes through for me. Sometimes, I see I’m wrong, and I appreciate finding that out before I open my mouth.” — Craig Newmark, founder Craig’s List

“Internet facilitates orders of magnitude in access to information. People now answer questions in a few moments that a couple of decades back they would not have bothered to ask, since getting the answer would have been impossibly difficult.”- John Pike, director, globalsecurity.org.

—International Herald Tribune