Post by shelbysinkhorn on Aug 9, 2011 13:37:59 GMT -5
“As we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.” I agree with this statement the article presents because I believe it is perhaps decreasing our critical thinking skills, affecting our memory, and allowing us to be lazy. It used to be when you got assigned a paper or project you’d have to spend time going places, reading books, use skills to find the information you are looking for. You would in the process learn more and take in knowledge that might not even applied to what you were looking for, but would perhaps come in handy later on. Today, with the technology we have, all you have to do is look at your assignment, write the question in Google, and you have everything you need right there. No critical thinking, no discovery, no taking in of the material; just skimming through what Google gives you.
From middle school to high school I saw a change in my grades, but also a change in just how much I used the computer for my work and other. Along with this I also noticed how focusing on reading my English books each summer became much more difficult each year. I would, like the article states, “get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.” Maybe because of how we 'think' has changed due to technology, is another reason why more and more students are having a harder time focusing in class.
Although I agree that search engines like Google are doing society damage for thinking and learning on their own, I do not necessarily disagree that taking on the qualities of technology is a bad thing. It’s like any other invention of the past, we just have to adapt to it and change or ways of living to work with it. Plain and simple, “old media have little choice but to play by the new-media rules.” So if technology creates the printing press to slowly die off, we have to adapt. Reading a book online is fine right? Or saving millions of trees? However, the negative out of adapting to the idea of thinking like technology is deep reading. The article states that, “deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the authors words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book… we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas.” And I agree that if we lose these things we gain from sitting down alone with a book that we will be sacrificing something that is needed in our culture. But, if this is where we are going then we will eventually adapt to the changes that occur because it’s about moving forward and with technology at every turn it will be too hard for anyone to resist using.
Google’s goal was to create a search engine that could help us be more productive. Is that worth risking though? As technology expands will we lose things like contemplation, decisions, focus, or even a since of a job well done. There are both really good negatives and positives to a machine so powerful, so smart, that it can out do humans. I believe, good or bad, we will continue to evolve with technology because who could resist the offer of “instantly available?”
From middle school to high school I saw a change in my grades, but also a change in just how much I used the computer for my work and other. Along with this I also noticed how focusing on reading my English books each summer became much more difficult each year. I would, like the article states, “get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.” Maybe because of how we 'think' has changed due to technology, is another reason why more and more students are having a harder time focusing in class.
Although I agree that search engines like Google are doing society damage for thinking and learning on their own, I do not necessarily disagree that taking on the qualities of technology is a bad thing. It’s like any other invention of the past, we just have to adapt to it and change or ways of living to work with it. Plain and simple, “old media have little choice but to play by the new-media rules.” So if technology creates the printing press to slowly die off, we have to adapt. Reading a book online is fine right? Or saving millions of trees? However, the negative out of adapting to the idea of thinking like technology is deep reading. The article states that, “deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the authors words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book… we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas.” And I agree that if we lose these things we gain from sitting down alone with a book that we will be sacrificing something that is needed in our culture. But, if this is where we are going then we will eventually adapt to the changes that occur because it’s about moving forward and with technology at every turn it will be too hard for anyone to resist using.
Google’s goal was to create a search engine that could help us be more productive. Is that worth risking though? As technology expands will we lose things like contemplation, decisions, focus, or even a since of a job well done. There are both really good negatives and positives to a machine so powerful, so smart, that it can out do humans. I believe, good or bad, we will continue to evolve with technology because who could resist the offer of “instantly available?”