Post by marycaitrolph on Aug 7, 2011 20:23:54 GMT -5
The article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr states that reading is not an instinctive skill for human beings and much to my mother’s horror I agree. My mother prides herself on having read to me from while in the womb until I no longer needed her to tuck me in at night. She tells me she knew I would be a “reader” and love to lose myself in the wonder of written word-she could have not been more wrong.
While I have the ability to read and understand the information presented,for the most part I would rather do just about anything than read for enjoyment. Google is an amazing tool for people like me. The article states that we are how we read and for me I this would mean to the point, scanning and finding what I decide is necessary. Google has reduced having to search through information that while interesting may not be helpful to my situation.
I do not believe the way I think has changed, since I am a product of the Internet generation. Every bit of information I have ever needed has always been at my fingertips, requiring me to only find the most relevant link, click and there it is. My mother questions what I am missing by not having to use a twenty volume edition encyclopedia or go to the library to research a topic. Am I losing critical thought process on deciding what is pertinent and what is added information? Are my organizational skills lacking since I do not have to assimilate information into tables to compare data? She, my mother, often asks questions such as, “what is the cause of this?” “what could have happened differently?” My answer, “I don’t know and I don’t have to, I have all the information I need.” Is it better to read just for information and skim the parts that I think do not apply? I believe for now my mother and I will agree to disagree.
The Internet has made me have less patience for many things, the faster our information stream, the slower everything else seems. Five years ago we were content with a dial-up connection (gasp) that could take three to five minutes to connect and knock us off-line if someone called our landline phone. Now the second my finger makes contact with the button, I expect to see my homepage immediately-no waiting. Now even my phone is categorized as a computer and if we travel outside wifi or 3g, I feel as if I am living in the ice age. We have become a society of knowing exactly what we want and wanting it now-no exceptions, no excuses. The author describes us as turning into “pancake people”-spread wide and thin as we connect with the information highway with the touch of a button.
My mother loves the smell of books, turning their pages, reading in anticipation of what will happen next and even connecting the dots to find her own answers. She can spend hours in a bookstore and tells me I will never know what I am missing. Perhaps she is right, but even she has a Kindle now. I can only imagine how technology will continue to change and what my children will think of how inefficient my research techniques are to them.
While I have the ability to read and understand the information presented,for the most part I would rather do just about anything than read for enjoyment. Google is an amazing tool for people like me. The article states that we are how we read and for me I this would mean to the point, scanning and finding what I decide is necessary. Google has reduced having to search through information that while interesting may not be helpful to my situation.
I do not believe the way I think has changed, since I am a product of the Internet generation. Every bit of information I have ever needed has always been at my fingertips, requiring me to only find the most relevant link, click and there it is. My mother questions what I am missing by not having to use a twenty volume edition encyclopedia or go to the library to research a topic. Am I losing critical thought process on deciding what is pertinent and what is added information? Are my organizational skills lacking since I do not have to assimilate information into tables to compare data? She, my mother, often asks questions such as, “what is the cause of this?” “what could have happened differently?” My answer, “I don’t know and I don’t have to, I have all the information I need.” Is it better to read just for information and skim the parts that I think do not apply? I believe for now my mother and I will agree to disagree.
The Internet has made me have less patience for many things, the faster our information stream, the slower everything else seems. Five years ago we were content with a dial-up connection (gasp) that could take three to five minutes to connect and knock us off-line if someone called our landline phone. Now the second my finger makes contact with the button, I expect to see my homepage immediately-no waiting. Now even my phone is categorized as a computer and if we travel outside wifi or 3g, I feel as if I am living in the ice age. We have become a society of knowing exactly what we want and wanting it now-no exceptions, no excuses. The author describes us as turning into “pancake people”-spread wide and thin as we connect with the information highway with the touch of a button.
My mother loves the smell of books, turning their pages, reading in anticipation of what will happen next and even connecting the dots to find her own answers. She can spend hours in a bookstore and tells me I will never know what I am missing. Perhaps she is right, but even she has a Kindle now. I can only imagine how technology will continue to change and what my children will think of how inefficient my research techniques are to them.