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Essay / Technological influence in Nicholas Carr's work “Is Google making us stupid”
In Nicholas Carr's article “Is Google making us stupid?” ”, he exclaims that our use of technology and learning information is significantly changed these days and our minds have lost the ability to think deeply. Carr presents this information and what it may become with harsh pessimistic thinking similar to that of Socrates in his day. He discusses several anecdotal accounts while also providing statistical evidence. I agree with Carr's thoughts on how Google hinders our natural intelligence and makes us dependent, while also seeing the positive side and how it allows us to go beyond our normal human limitations and achieve greater intelligence overall. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayCarr begins by presenting his views on technology and how it reshapes our brains by comparing us to Hal from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hall's brain is similar to that of a modern-day human because he believes that our use of technology and the information provided to us restructures our brain in negative ways. He no longer has the capacity for a long attention span and critical and deep thinking skills. It presents the idea that over the years his brain and connections have been reworked and his close reading skills have diminished. Carr supports his own story with anecdotes from colleagues and literary acquaintances such as Bruce Friedman, Scott Karp, and Marshall McLuhan, all describing the same idea that the ability for close reading and information gathering is being lost. “Speed reading” is now the modern way to absorb information, as the Internet fuels it with hyperlinks and an abundance of click-through information. Carr then presents a study of online search habits conducted by researchers at University College London, illustrating that people rarely read even a few pages of an article and instead move from one site to another vaguely skimming its information. I side with Carr's thinking as I myself have lost the attention span to read an entire novel and instead prefer to use the internet and browse the information I'm looking for. Another example that fuels Carr's reasoning is the book Proust and the Squid: The History and Science of the Reading Brain. Maryanne Wolf, author and developmental psychologist at Tufts University, expounds the view that “we are not just what we read…we are how we read” (Carr 5). She argues that we are more like decoders of information than interpreters. While there is some truth to this opinionated view, I believe that we as humans are so much more than “the way we read.” People are the product of their environment, their lives and their hobbies. While I understand why Carr included this anecdote, it's important to remember that how people choose to spend their time on the Internet depends solely on the individual themselves and what they're looking for. If one spends all day browsing articles on the Internet paying little attention, this may be the case, but the Internet offers a plethora of options that are entirely dependent on the choices and decisions of the users. Carr continues to present evidence and even connects our current technology to that of the past. He discusses the point of view of the sociologist Daniel Bell and his point of view according towhich we inevitably begin to adopt the qualities of the “intellectual technologies” (Carr 7) provided to us and anchor them in our daily lives. In addition to this, Joseph Weizenbaum, a computer scientist at MIT, advances the view that we, as humans, are slowly but surely moving from critical thinking to mathematical/mechanical thinking. The mechanical clock is a perfect example of technology changing our lives and the way we think. This invention completely revolutionized our perception of life and how we can break it down into a mathematical system. In a sense, the clock dictates our lives from when we get up and go to sleep, to when to complete our daily tasks. I agree with this vision and believe that technology will become more and more ingrained in our minds and in our actions. Another main point that Carr uses to strengthen his argument and my view on it is the story of Frederick Winslow Taylor and his invention of "scientific science." management” (Carr 9-10). Taylor saw the inefficiency of factories and product production and proposed a solution. He broke down what was once a job into smaller parts with precise instructions, much like machines do now. At first, workers were reluctant to follow the strict instructions due to their sense of automation. Despite this, productivity fell and soon a new production model was formed, completely changing future productivity. Taylor is quoted as saying, “In the past, man was first…in the future, the system must be first” (Carr 10). I completely agree with Taylor's point and commend Carr for using this amazing example. In today's society, "the system," or modern technology and the Internet, shapes our lives in myriad ways, from automated processes in every aspect imaginable to the growing power of large corporations that deliver media to the masses. We are in turn the product of our consumption and the environment that surrounds us. One of the biggest influences on our daily lives is Google. Google takes the world's information and sorts it however we want. The company’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (Carr 11). Their view is that the more quickly we can access information, the more we can extract and absorb into our own thinking. Accessibility of information and ease of use have made extensive reading and patience a thing of the past. The time it takes to find information and research a topic has been significantly reduced, allowing us to “skim” through information to find what we want in seconds. Google goes even further by processing and storing users' habits to automatically complete their thoughts and searches. In my opinion, this creates a “funnel” effect and restricts our interests and the information we find online. Like many others, I can testify that although there is an abundance of different websites and information on the Internet, only a small percentage are actually accessed by the population, which in some ways reduces our supply of information. information. Internet giants like Google, YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon take up most of our time on the web, leaving them to manage our information (Feinn). All of these programs put us in “boxes” and our search results are tailored to what the platforms want us to see. It's not all bad news,-44974.