Standing Ovation: Reading response 2

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Reading response 2

In the article ‘’is Google making us stupid ?” Nicholas Carr reflects focusing on how internet has significantly altered the way our reasoning process functions. He claims that this modern technology has metamorphosed our brains in the way we comprehend and analyze data. His argument is that this evolution is profoundly affecting the way we comprehend and perceive information, stating that this particular way of reading is no longer allowing us to achieve the overall goal of reading. As he states “ Research that once required days in the stacks of periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes”. He is inviting the reader to take the time to reflect critically on how fast the whole process of research has become. He also formulated a nice analogy reporting “ Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.“ Although, he does acknowledge the advantage of having such a universal medium, one that allows the immediate access to an incredibly rich store of information. He also states that the more we use the web, the more we have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. The reason behind this, subconsciously manifests itself through the ease of already having tons of already summarized information on the web. Thereby the need to restate it appears to be ephemeral, and so negligible. That is the reason why our mind doesn’t function as it did before. I will restate a very important fact about a study that has been conducted in a University in London and say that we actually are in the midst of a sea of change concerning both our reading and reasoning process. Is it fruitful or disadvantageous ? The answer lies within the minds of individuals. “We are not only what we read,” says Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University and the author of Proust and the Squid: The story and science of the Reading Brain. “We are how we read”. This claim seems to prove that this metamorphosis we are encountering is not necessarily negative but rather subjective.

My theory that makes the basis of my understanding of this reality is that everything we can imagine is interconnected. Under this circumstance, all the information and the knowledge that underlies the existence of this reality as we know it, we already know. All the information that exists in the internet exists within the collective consciousness which is tapped within each of us. All the knowledge exists in a space that we humans can access with our consciousness because we are a part of that space. However, in order to access that web of tremendous power, we need to transcend language thereby not think in words. Returning the mind to this natural pre-linguistic state of consciousness is not easy. As the author of the article confirmed, research that once required days, can now be done with the evolution of technology in minutes. If we connect the evolution of technology with the evolution of the human consciousness it will take less than a minute to access all the information we need without internet. So there is no need to read anything because we already know everything. I know this sounds like some supernatural magic, but I do believe we live in a supernatural magic world. This will be the post-evolution era.

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Welcome

Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Standing Ovation”! The title of this blog refers to the audience of active readers we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! I encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. I hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it!