Is the Internet a hazard to literacy? Is Google making us stupid? There are many arguments about this. Nicholas Carr in The Shallows (2010) argues that every information technology carries with it an ‘intellectual ethic’, and while the printed book serves to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought, the Internet, in stark contrast, encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many different sources, with the result that we are becoming ever more adept at skimming and scanning but are losing our capacity for concentration, contemplation and reflection. Do you agree? Read extracts from the works referenced at the end of this book by Sven Birkets, Wen Stephenson, Margaret Simons and Nicholas Carr and discuss the pros and cons raised by both sides of the argument.