Nicholas Carr, who will be SLA 2010 keynote speaker on Wednesday, 16 June in New Orleans, asks “Are Google Maps and GPS bad for our brains?” in Sunday’s Washington Post. Carr talks about a woman who was hit by a car while crossing a four-lane highway in January 2009. More than a year after the accident, she filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming that the route for her walk had been suggested by Google Maps. The lawsuit asks for more than $100,000 in damages, in part to cover medical bills.
That has to make you wonder: Is less-than-perfect information a liability? Can you hold a party liable for the use, or misuse, of reasonably good information? Carr’s new book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, was also just reviewed by the New York Times, and the subject of a Q & A in the Times “Paper Cut” blog.
I’m looking forward to hearing in person what Nicholas Carr has to say in The Big Easy next week in New Orleans!
Read the Washington Post article, “Are Google Maps and GPS bad for our brains?” (6 June 2010)
Read New York Times “Paper Cut” Blog, “Questions for: Nicholas Carr” (4 June 2010)
Read New York Times Book Review, “Our Cluttered Minds” (27 May 2010)
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