Have you ever been reading something and after a while you process that you did not understand or get anything you just read? Or have you ever done a reading 2-3 days ahead of time for a class and when you have to talk about them you are completely blank? Or when you have an online article or a reading that is longer than 2 pages you just skim through it to see if it is worth reading?
If the answer is yes to any of these questions then I do not know why are you doing that, maybe you are just lazy or you are like Doris from Finding Nemo. But, according to Nicholas Carr, it is the fault of technology development. He says that we are reading more than ever, but which type of reading are we actually doing? I do not think we need to give a lot of thought when we read a text message, a tweet, an facebook post or an email, those are things that do not require a lot of attention or a lot of analysis. Also, thanks to smartphones or tablets, we are able to read entire documents or newspapers, but do we an analytical reading or we just skim through then to get a grasp of the main ideas.
In my opinion, I think it is unfair to blame it on the technological advances that we have experience in the last decades, yes indeed technology is suppose to make our life easier and more comfortable, but it is our decision how we use it. It is our decision what type of reading we want to do out of the things we read.
Carr brings up the question if whether or not Google is making us stupid, I personally think it does not, Google makes easier a lot of the research work for us, but at the end it is still upon us to read and determine what it is useful and what is not for us.
Who knows maybe in a future, it would like in "The Matrix", were you would not have to read anything and instead you will be able to download and install in you brain any specific information you want, or maybe we will have Google installed in our brain and we will just have to search the answer of anything we want to know.
I agree with Carr; technology has indeed affected our way of reading and grasping information. With everything being just a click away, there is no need to go in-depth into articles to find the information we need. I agree that google and the internet provide us with an easier and more efficient way to attain information, thus helping us become more knowledgable people. However, this easy accessibility of information is preventing us from accurately analyzing what we read. So while we now have access to more information than ever before, are we actually grasping the information adequately? I think in a way technology is making us value content over context.
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ReplyDeletePersonally, I disagree with Carr for blaming Google for making us stupid. It is same as blaming one’s car for making one fat. The car doesn’t make one fat; it is one’s lethargic lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteIn the second paragraph, Carr refers to his inability to read long articles without losing concentration. Then he goes on to it on blame Google and how it fulfills our appetite for ‘short and sweet’ packets of information. Carr believes that we have become, in layman terms, impatient. Though, to a certain degree, that is true but it has provided us with as opportunity to absorb knowledge easily and efficiently. One can make an analogy with Carr’s desire to read long articles with a one who, out of curiosity of its contents, reads an entire 300 page book when one could have easily done it by just skimming the back cover.
With that said, I believe that Carr does appreciate the fact that our world has been revolutionized. In our fast paced, rapidly changing world, there is no place for the sluggish. One does not have the time to go through pages upon pages of jabber when one can extract what one wants online. Is not the fact that ‘time is money’ has become our motto astonishing? The species that first valued pieces of gold more than anything now values something that it cannot even see?
While reading Carr's article, he proved himself to be correct based on my experience. I wanted his article to be shorter. I found that the same message could be articulated in a much shorter fashion. Carr is mostly correct in saying that the times where we spent hours upon hours reading and analyzing (college is the exception).
ReplyDeleteI agree with Samuel that the type of reading that we conduct is up to us. While some may enjoy analyzing reading, others may just want to get the general meaning of an article or book. I think this can be attributed to some extent to the mass overload of information provided by the Internet. However, I do not view this in the same negative regard that Carr does. Shorter articles allow readers to immerse themselves into more information creating a more well-informed person. It is must easier to be well-rounded and knowledgeable thanks to Google. I have a hard time seeing Google as a detriment to our intelligence.
I agree that Google has changed the way we learn things, but not that it is a bad thing. Yes, articles are designed to hold our attentions and have been shortened as a result, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I think its good, because we have much more information out there to process than before, and we need to filter out what is important and what is unnecessary more than our ancestors have. The times have changed, and values with it. Now the question is now "how much do you know?" but "do you know what’s important?" with limitless access everybody can learn something, but what matters in this day and age is not knowing something (that has become commonplace) but knowing how to use what you know. Our system in learning has become similar to the way our brain makes connections and stores information: our brains make connections, and learn to access certain connections more quickly than others, because they are more important. Similarly, we are learning to prioritize our learning, and to retain the important information, and discard the unnecessary. After all, if it becomes necessary, we can simply look it up.
ReplyDeleteI buy into Carr's claim that our way of thinking is changing drastically and that we are loosing our ability to articulate sophisticated ideas, but i do not think this is an outcome of a sole cause, Google according to Carr. I think it has a lot to do with our way of life. Human kind has evolved to embrace simplicity to the point where it has become a necessity and this necessity creates craving for even more simplicity resulting in a vicious cycle. This need for simplicity is what drives our endless pursuit for technological progress. Google, along side many other products, has been serving this purpose - our life is simpler now than ever before. Our excessive reliance on these products is what causing our ability to think critically regress, as argued by Carr.
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe Google is making us stupid, we’re merely trying to adjust to a new form of technology. However, just like Bruce Friedman and Scott Karp, I do believe that my attention span and that of other people is getting shorter. There are just so many sources of information that we have access to, but we don’t have the time to read and absorb everything. Nicholas Carr sites a study in his article:“They found that people using the sites exhibited ‘a form of skimming activity,’ hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they’d already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would ‘bounce’ out to another site. Sometimes they’d save a long article, but there’s no evidence that they ever went back and actually read it.” This is exactly what I do. Whenever I want to learn about something, I can easily Google it. Getting the answer within a few seconds, I normally grab the necessary information. However, sometimes there are so many sites to browse through: I want to get the accurate information so I click on multiple sites, which leads to clicking on more links and becoming overwhelmed and distracted with numerous sources. I keep the tabs opened for quite some time thinking I’ll read them later when I have free time, but that never happens and I end up closing out of them because what I wanted to know a few days ago isn't relevant anymore. Unfortunately, we don’t all have photographic memory or the ability to absorb everything due to our limited number of brain cells. Therefore, we need to adapt just as those did during the age of Socrates. As Carr mentions, Socrates had the opinion that reading and writing would cause us to rely on words rather than memory. However, reading and writing have increased analytical thinking and have allowed us to express ideas that can be reviewed later. In that case, what people are skeptical about now will eventually become commonplace in the future. So it may be that Google will change learning for the better and a short attention span is just an ephemeral side effect. It’s only a matter of adapting to this new form of gaining knowledge and keeping track of information; people will just have to learn differently as time progresses.
ReplyDeleteOn one hand I do agree with Carr that technology has decreased our reading skills.I know in some cases we'd rather watch a movie than taking the time to read the book for ourselves. I agree with some of my classmates saying that Google isn't making us stupid. As stated before, it is up to us to decifer information and read it ourselves. Google is a helpful, valuable site that gives us extra knowledge on a particular subject. Pertaining to us college students, we are pretty much adults now. Meaning that we can make our own decisions and we can determine which learning device is better for us whether it be reading a book or searchng the information up on the internet. Either way one would have to read. Personally I think reading the info in a book helps stimulate our minds and helps us focus on the analytical thinking as Tatianna stated earlier.
ReplyDeleteI actually agree more with Carr on this topic. I believe that this technological revolution is changing the way we think and consume information. I have the same problems Carr discusses in the beginning of his article, and I have noticed them even more now that I have started college and am constantly using my computer. Even in just a few months, this internet use had changed how I function, and it is honestly a bit frightening. Now, I don’t think that this change is necessarily bad. As Carr writes, past technologies have changed us, yet (in my opinion) we are still doing fine. Sam, you mention blaming the technology, and I agree with you that that is unfair to do. These advancements are immensely beneficial for us, and at this point I don’t think that hypothetical concerns should stop us from innovating. But to some extent I don’t think it is our decision of how we use it. In order to adapt to (and be accepted in) the society we live in, we have to embrace the technologies that our society embraces. For example, it’s difficult for young people like us to connect with our peers if we don’t text, have a Facebook, or go online. Carr talks about the printing press as an invention that caused a lot of worry, and, Carr admits, has changed us. If you chose not to use this invention for fear of its effects, where would you be? Illiterate, jobless, etc.? Nowadays, most people don’t even have a choice as to what inventions they accept; in school or work you are made to use all sorts of technology. All we can do is wait to see what happens to us from it.
ReplyDeleteI recall being more sympathetic to Carr when I first read this article. My brain is weary right now, so I'm going to review all of these comments tomorrow before class.
ReplyDeleteThe one neuron still working in my head reminds me of a debate that poet and software designer Michael Joyce said in the 90s, long before the effects that Carr decries became a subject for debate.
Joyce wondered whether in the future we might not need to simply think differently, in particular, whether a sustained attention span might be less useful that a "series of attending." I don't have Joyce's book handy (it's 22 miles away) but that term stuck with me.
The lateral, associative thinking that the Internet encourages is not the deep, stately thinking needed for ready Jane Austen or mastering Ancient Greek.
I wish we could keep both baby and bathwater. If not, will those who cultivate deep patterns of thinking, the scholars such as those who teach you, become obsolete? Or will they find niche existences as a type of "living Wikipedia"?
Wish I could edit that! I meant to write "reminds me of a remark by poet & software designer..."
ReplyDeleteI was at a debate about this topic before Joyce's book appeared, and I got to talk at length with him afterward. He's got a brilliant mind and can move between constant communications online and deep sustained thought.
That dual mode of thinking is getting rarer. Pity.