According to Carr, IQ test scores have been gradually rising since before World War II. However, "other measures of intelligence don't show anything like the gains we've seen in overall IQ scores. In fact, even IQ tests have been sending mixed signals"(Carr 145). Given that internet use has dramatically increased during the years between 1999 and 2008, scores on tests like the PSATs went low. For example, the average critical reading score fell from 48.3 to 46.7 and the writing score dropped by 6.9 percent. The internet therefore must be a factor to why "literary reading aptitude suffered the largest decline, dropping twelve percent."(Carr 146). Before the internet was invented, like in between the 1970's and 90's, research in countries like Norway and Denmark  have been going south. Carr insisted that James Flynn concluded that the internet isn't necessarily decreasing everybody's intelligence, however, it is transforming the way people think about intelligence. Flynn said "we weren't more intelligent than our ancestors were, but we had learnt to apply our intelligence to a new set of problems"(Carr 147). Rather than smarter than our ancestors are or were, we are equally as smart in a complete variety of ways. Basically no one has a better brain than another. Every one has different brains than another. Since I've started using the internet, and since my parents have made statements which includes "It is bad for you." and "It is not productive in any way.", I have always wondered what intelligence and IQ really means other than how fast a person learns. I am sure that many people today are forming their own opinions of what intelligence really is because of the many theories people including Nicholas Carr and James Flynn have concluded. I think that sometime later this century, the college board, along with testers of what is called the IB program will make renovations to their testing system because they will have a much more thorough understanding of how intelligence has evolved and is currently evolving. It is just another change of how things function in eras just like the change before this one and the change before that. For example, during the era where there was slavery, masters had no idea what cause slaves to slack from their work. Like they never even thought of them the way we would normally think of people. As the centuries went by, more and more people began to realize the horror of slavery and racism towards African-American. Before the internet was invented, people in culture usually used text and print as a source of intellectual growth. As the internet is a new source of intellectual growth today, it is likely that it will take time for more people to realize what the internet is really doing to our brains. Just like how it took a long time for people to view slavery as horrible. When do you think that the standardized testers will renovate their methods of measuring intelligence? Do you think they ever will? I have a feeling that right now, many people in today's society think that the internet is messing with intelligence, should be banned, and I am sure they are thinking many other opposing opinions. I think Carr should find more proof of how the internet is changing the way intelligence is thought about rather than just say what the internet is doing to our brains. How is it changing the way we think?

-Drew Theran 3/31/12