Post by johnthompson on Aug 3, 2011 16:59:44 GMT -5
Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” brings up several valuable points on the modern evolution of thought. The response to this article can be summarized in one word, speed. Technology is just simple innovations that make a task faster and/or easier. If there is a new form of technology that changes how we can acquire information, then wouldn’t there be a change in how our minds process that information? This entire article is being surprised at cause and effect. Carr supports that the neural patterns shaped by regular Internet usage can also be expected to be different from that shaped by the reading of books. Google is not making us stupid it’s simply making us different. Software is simply changing how our culture gains information. Instead of fishing for answers in a book, we can now find precisely for what we are looking for in a matter of seconds. My opinion on the topic is a positive one. I believe skeptics are simply afraid of change from the traditional ways of acquiring knowledge. This is not surprising it is a simple human reaction; we fear what we don’t know. But for my generation, a generation who grew up entirely accessible to the internet, the new way of thinking is comfortable. I am not saying to ditch books or intellectual articles of any sort, simply embrace innovations. People will still enjoy books and the long articles in the New York Times. But it is undeniable that our way of thinking has changed and will continue to do so as long as creations and innovations are being developed. Our culture simply needs to move with it. Sure, read a book but do not condemn a new path to information just because it seems lazy. If the same amount of information was acquired and you found out what you set out to find then the term lazy should be replaced with effective.
Carr states “The Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” Mr. Carr is a 51 year old man who bases his writing career off the internet. He is like the fat guy who sues McDonalds for giving him a heart attack. This goes back to my early point, newer generations do not have this problem of thinking they have lost the ability to concentrate on a single piece if literature. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” feels to suggest that there is no intellectual value in the way of thinking Mr. Carr believes he has. If anything this new way of thinking has enriched the minds of today’s public. We can gain information faster, process that information quicker, and get back to the reason why we needed that information.
Carr states “The Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” Mr. Carr is a 51 year old man who bases his writing career off the internet. He is like the fat guy who sues McDonalds for giving him a heart attack. This goes back to my early point, newer generations do not have this problem of thinking they have lost the ability to concentrate on a single piece if literature. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” feels to suggest that there is no intellectual value in the way of thinking Mr. Carr believes he has. If anything this new way of thinking has enriched the minds of today’s public. We can gain information faster, process that information quicker, and get back to the reason why we needed that information.