Reading Response 2

In the article "Is Google Making Us Stupid," Nicholas Carr insists the technology we continue to use everyday is changing the way we read and the ability to absorb the things we used to. Its not just changing our reading, it's altering our whole mind set, our thinking process. Affecting the way we focus and perceive things and no longer allowing us to accomplish the overall goal of reading. Carr is bringing this to our attention because many do not want to admit the troubles technology has actually caused. Instead of brushing off the negative effects of technology he is asking people to open their minds and take time to evaluate the way they think. To see if what he is saying is in fact true. He makes a strong point, when he observes how he used to read and how he reads today, "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." Rather than, getting into the texts he reads, he now just quickly skims through it. Not being able to pick up the depth of ones writing or overall points. We've had no choice, but to adapt to this new lifestyle filled with all different kinds of technology. As Maryanne Wolf puts it, "It's a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking--perhaps even a new sense of self." This "new sense of self" seems like an uncontrollable change and something that everybody has grown used too. Nobody has taken the time to realize their “new” minds. In Carr’s article, he brought in a study conducted by scholars from the University College London that claims, “we may well be in the midst of a sea change in the way we read and think.” This is an important claim because this is what the whole article is based off of. This claims seems to be added evidence of what Nicholas Carr’s central claim is. In the writing that follows, the evidence appears to be making the claim true. Observing that students would generally hop from one source to the other and hardly ever return to any websites they had already visited. In a typical sitting, they would read no more than one or two pages of an article and move on to the next. This claim is just proving to me more and more, how accurate it actually is. The more I read and think about this article, the more I realize this is how my reading is today. Since I’ve read this article, it came to my attention as I was actually in the moment. At my work part of our training consists of CBL’s or Computer Based Learning. I was sitting there, trying to listen and read the powerpoints, but my mind could never get there. No matter how hard I tried, it just wasn’t working. I sat there looking at the posters on the walls, looking around at people in the room, chipping off my fingernail polish. Not once were my eyes focused on the computer screen, except for when I had to click to the next slide.