Reading Response #2

In the article ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr explains how the usage of technology and how it is changing culture today. Carr wants his readers to know that technology is not only changing how we retrieve our information but how we perceive it as well. Carr identifies changes with his own experience with reading and the use of technology “immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy…I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose…that’s rarely the case anymore”. Carr feels that with the internet an individual can be overwhelmed with information and with the internet and sites like Google they can look at many links to a variety of topics; Carr implies that with this technology people will find it more difficult to dig deep into one article or piece of literature, as he has experienced. To further his point, Carr brings up a study done at the University College London, a five year study found that internet users were revealing skimming activities “...hopping around from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they’d already visited…typically reading no more then one or two pages of an article or book before they would ‘bounce’ out to another site”. This shows that with the advancement of technology and the internet, many individuals are experiencing changes in the way they recover information.

Another claim Carr brought up was “The clocks methodical ticking helped bring into being the scientific mind and the scientific man. But it also took something away”. Before a ticking clock was around people ate when they were hungry, they went to sleep if they were tired and they woke up when their body told them to. With the clock around Carr explains it decided “when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock”. Carr is implying that even though technology is useful and brings many benefits he believes there are always going to be negative effects as well. Carr demonstrates his insight with a parallel to the clock and to the internet nowadays. Just as the clock diminished the use for instinctive senses, I believe Carr is contemplating if the internet will weaken the mind.

When reading this article I am in agreement with Carr. Technology does change culture and the way society thinks, but where Carr was wary about technology I have a different understanding. The internet may be changing how individuals perceive things and how they obtain information but I do not believe it to be dumping down society. From my own experiences the internet has been a very beneficial tool. For example, if I’m researching a topic, where a book may give me one individuals opinion or insight with the internet I can look at many different opinions and therefore get a better understanding of the topic. The way I understand it is the internet is a tool, just like a match. If one went camping and wanted to light a fire and used the match over trying to start a fire with two rocks, that is not taking away the ability to start it with two rocks but rather one is taking advantage of the technology and resources today’s society offers.