Is the internet e.g. Google and other tools making us stupid?

Greetings.  I am reading some of the articles/blogs, etc.. for our April 4 class and a few quick thoughts/questions occurred to me.  All these amazing wonderful tools that we now have at our disposal that can make our work/research and learning so much easier and expansive.  However, do we have the discipline to use these tools properly/correctly?? These tools are amazing and I do not think that we need to or should debunk them.  The question here is can we use them well? In the Carr piece, he quotes McLuhan: “media is not a passive channel of information — they supply stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.” Yes, definitely, and it is up to us the “users” of these tools of information to shape our process of thought and not just to succumb (become prostrate to) these tools.  We need to be picky and discerning as to what is helpful and what is not.   We can still struggle to keep the our attention focused (use Csikezentmihalyi’s Flow concept and exercise it) and still enjoy the beauty of reading books.  It is still within our hands and within our control.  I refuse to accept surrender to the “swiftly moving stream of particles” of information which is how the internet gives us information.  So are these tools making us stupid?? it is up to us and how we use these tools.  These tools themselves are not contributing to our lack of or poor knowledge acquisition or our “stupidity” — it is all about how we use them! Thanks and welcome your comments.