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Malcolm Gladwell Calls Google 'The Answer to The Problem We Didn't Have'

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November 10, 2008 | 2:38 p.m
Gladwell<br /> (Getty Images)
Gladwell
Getty Images

Remember when Nicholas Carr asked in The Atlantic, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (Sure you don't: That was way back in July/August and we've all been using Google too much.)

If the planet-devouring search engine is bringing about the dumbening of mankind, New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell might just be the last intelligent man, according to New York's profile of him by Jason Zengerle.

Writes Mr. Zengerle in this week's Geek Pop Star:

Beneath the crazy hair, the slobby-chic clothes, and the buzzword-filled vocabulary is an old-fashioned guy who grew up among Mennonites in rural Ontario, didn’t have a TV until he was 23, and still prefers to do most of his research at the NYU library. Google is something of a personal hobbyhorse: 'Google is the answer to the problem we didn’t have. It doesn’t tell you what’s interesting or what’s important. There’s still more in the library than there is on Google.'
Perhaps Mr. Gladwell will be like Will Smith's in I Am Legend, holing himself up at Bobst Library, coming up with new theories to save mankind when Google final drains our brains dry.

 

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