Post by nathanjohnson on Jul 31, 2011 14:27:37 GMT -5
Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” offers a new view on the adaptation and integration of search engines and instant mass-media into Western Culture. Carr discusses the shortening attention spans and increased fidgety-ness of adults today. Carr argues that this is the result of search engines, such as Google, being able to offer information instantly, while also not requiring contemplation of that information, rather just the ability to skim it. Carr states “Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it’s a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking—perhaps even a new sense of the self.” In this sense, Carr is very right. Especially in teens, technology has created a need for constant stimulation. Smartphones are the perfect example of this. With modern phones being able to offer games, internet access, social media, texting, calling, productivity and millions of other tools at the simple touch of a screen, we are no longer able to sit idly. Instead, we must be constantly doing something. This is a reflection of how our minds have been altered. No longer can we be “bored,” but instead we must be doing everything, all at once. We have taken it upon ourselves to be the generation that accomplishes all, succeeds in everything and is always connected.
However, while I agree with Carr’s statement that Google is “changing the way we think,” I must disagree with his belief that this change is for the worse. For example, when Carr brought up German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s loss of sight and adoption of the type-writer, he also discusses how Nietzsche’s writing changed. “Nietzsche’s prose changed from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style.” What the typewriter had allowed Nietzsche to do was to express his ideas faster and, indeed, more truthfully. This is what instantaneous technology is changing – our ability to express ourselves. Whereas, previously, the pen and paper required careful thought before being utilized, such tools as text-messaging and Twitter allow us to say what we think almost an instant after we think it. We have become a blunt society, in which no opinion is too rash. Google is changing us to know exactly what is happening, and as soon as it happens.
Something is lost, I will agree, with this new, fast-paced style of thinking. We are no longer reflecting on what we need to say. What we should strive to do is to condition ourselves to say what we think when we think it – but also make sure that what we are thinking can be perceived correctly. If we all become another one of Google’s “systems,” as Carr believes we will, then we are losing the personal aspect of what we read and write. By slowing down our thoughts to be more contemplative and intrapersonal, we can maintain what the writers of the past had, while also being successful in modern day.
However, while I agree with Carr’s statement that Google is “changing the way we think,” I must disagree with his belief that this change is for the worse. For example, when Carr brought up German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s loss of sight and adoption of the type-writer, he also discusses how Nietzsche’s writing changed. “Nietzsche’s prose changed from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style.” What the typewriter had allowed Nietzsche to do was to express his ideas faster and, indeed, more truthfully. This is what instantaneous technology is changing – our ability to express ourselves. Whereas, previously, the pen and paper required careful thought before being utilized, such tools as text-messaging and Twitter allow us to say what we think almost an instant after we think it. We have become a blunt society, in which no opinion is too rash. Google is changing us to know exactly what is happening, and as soon as it happens.
Something is lost, I will agree, with this new, fast-paced style of thinking. We are no longer reflecting on what we need to say. What we should strive to do is to condition ourselves to say what we think when we think it – but also make sure that what we are thinking can be perceived correctly. If we all become another one of Google’s “systems,” as Carr believes we will, then we are losing the personal aspect of what we read and write. By slowing down our thoughts to be more contemplative and intrapersonal, we can maintain what the writers of the past had, while also being successful in modern day.