Feeling Stupid? Blame Your Computer

Talk about unintended consequences: the emails, text messages and instant messages that supposedly make people better-connected can also make them more stupid, according to a new study. In a project sponsored by Hewlett-Packard, Glenn Wilson, a professor at King's College London, tested the impact on workers of a steady bombardment of electronic messages and found that workers temporarily lost 10 points of IQ as a result of trying to handle all the incoming information -- more than double the four-point effect of smoking marijuana and roughly matching the effect of missing a full night's sleep.

From the Wall Street Journal