Post by sarahcritchfield on Aug 4, 2011 20:18:24 GMT -5
Human beings are constantly adapting to new technologies. The wheel, the printing press, the automobile, the internet; history adapted to every new gadget that popped up. While negatives did come from new inventions, like automobile accident deaths, drunk driving, and prematurely viewing questionable material on the internet, the way that society has advanced because of new inventions like this far exceeds the seemingly minor infractions. Humanity adapts with technology. It’s our nature. We can’t simply ignore the new, shiny toys, keeping our old raggedy hand me downs. We have to embrace the new things, whether we are reluctant or not. It will continue until the end of time. The internet, as we all well know, is a huge invention that, like the roads invented long ago in ancient Rome, connects people together. You can find anything you want on the internet. Friends, more than friends (if you know what I mean), products you can buy, and information about every little thing under the sun. It’s so easy and so accessible. “Is Google Making us Stupid” suggests that the internet, which every single person who is not eighty years old or in a third world country has come to love, is hindering our ability to focus and develop thoughts like we used to. But I don’t believe that is the case. People are busy these days. Busy with jobs and children. No one has time to pick up an atlas to find their way to the nearest Ikea or pick up an encyclopedia to find the easiest way to remedy a small burn on their child’s arm. People have time to do what is most convenient, which is to type it into Google. That’s not hindering anyone’s ability to form thoughts, that’s just using what you can to help who you need to help. Now, maybe being online reading and what not for twenty-four hours a day, three hundred-sixty-five days a year may end up causing one to lose their ability to concentrate and dwell on certain thoughts. But for the amount of time an average person uses the web, I don’t think so. Writer of the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Nicholas Carr, says that the internet is “chipping away his capacity for concentration and contemplation.” He states, “My concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages [of a book]. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.” But is that really the internet’s fault? He was the one who chose to put down the dusty books and pick up a brand new lap top and start surfing away on the internet. Carr is at fault for his own chipping away. He can’t blame an inanimate object for something that he brought upon himself. So no, Nicholas Carr, Google is not making us stupid. Google didn’t burn all of the books and tape your hands to the computer and demand, “Type! Search! Destroy your brain!” You did it to yourself, Mr. Carr. You made yourself stupid.