In Nicholas Carr's article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" he seems to be very unsure of the answer he is looking for. He says the internet seems to be "chipping away my [his] capacity for concentration and contemplation." He is used to taking things in the way the internet delivers them, short and to the point. He describes this change by saying, "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski." Nicholas Carr no longer reads into the detailed writings like he had before because of the way the internet distributes things. This is where his question, "Is Google making us stupid?" originated from.
Carr takes tid-bits of stories he had read relating to technology and what it has done to society in the past and finds that there are both pros and cons having to do with each topic. There had been many doubts in the beginning of each situation, like Socrates and the development of writing or Hieronimo Squarciafico with the printing press, but we have found ways to adapt to these changes and they have benefited society. He gave us all the information in the article and the question remains unanswered. He then says "be skeptical of my skepticism," like he wants us embrace what he has said and find an answer for ourselves.
As human begins, it is our key role to adapt in evolution. We've adapted to the printing press and we have adapted to the clock. Although the clock ensures us to listen to time rather than senses, I'd say we're doing well and we have come a long way. There are many critics that have said that technology "weakens the mind," and causes "laziness," but at the same time it is strengthening the mind.
Through the whole article I read how each story adapted to the new technologies and I thought that if we've been adapting to new technologies since back in the day, what is the big deal now? Then I reached the end of the article and read the part from Kubrick's dark prophecy, "as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence." and it changed my mind in a way. It obviously took an intelligent person to create a computer, so it is pretty disheartening to see that what we have created is now dumbing us down... My answer to the question "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" is undecided and I feel that we have to wait and see.
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