First off, Socrates is wrong overall, but he makes some good points; that writing relieves the individual from the task of memorization, that writing can be dead on arrival, in the instance of speeches, where “the speaker always gives one unvarying answer” (Phaedrus 97e). However, these points are irrelevant, mostly because Socrates unreasonably demands too much of forms of expression that have little to do with having the sole purpose of continuous dialogue. Socrates is silly in his assertion of paintings being lifeless, because they obviously are! Of course they will “preserve a solemn silence” when asked a question (97e)! Their purpose is not to entertain your thoughts! Neither is the purpose of speeches to have a discussion, but rather the purpose is to present an idea that serves as a jumping off point to that conversation.
I think that Plato, who Carr writes “…shared Socrates’ worry that reading might substitute for remembering, leading to a loss of inner depth…”, was mostly right, and took this idea on with a more measured mind than Socrates (The Oral World vs. The Written Word). It’s also important to remember that Socrates was often Plato’s “character”, since Plato used Socrates in his works at his own discretion. So it’s especially interesting to note Plato’s beef with the poets, who at the time were the representatives of oral culture. He knew that the highly evolved manner of knowledge keeping through the human vessels that were poet-scholars could be better store complex information without relying on memory. That oral tradition has artistic merit is not the matter of debate, it’s that “the written word liberated knowledge from the bounds of individual memory, and freed language from the rhythmical and formulaic structures required to support memorization and recitation” (qtd. Mcluhan, Carr).
Comparing the advent of the Internet to the invention of the alphabet is not accurate. The Internet, as Carr writes, shapes the process of thought. I completely share in Carr’s experience that “the Net seems to be…chipping away at my capacity for concentration and contemplation”. Bruce Friedman makes the point that that he “almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article”, something that I completely relate to. Most of the time, if I read an article with good information in it, I bookmark it and remember the name of the article rather than the content, if that. This trips me up real bad in debates and discussions I’ve had, where, I remember reading about a good statistic or point that would support what I’m saying, but I don’t actually remember what it is, only that it is there. It’s disadvantageous in an argument, since it makes you seem like you don’t have an informed opinion, only that you regurgitate information, rather than think, which is accurate in a way.
I don’t think this is a sign we’ve become stupid, but this does mean that our memories aren’t as exercised as they once were, as Socrates correctly predicted.