Article 1 Response: Is Google Making Us Stupid?

     When reading this article about how the internet has changed the way we read, I found myself zoning off and having to reread sentences. The author, Nicholas Carr, states that before the luxury of the internet and other electronics, he spent his days reading long books or passages. He'd find himself deep in thought and sucked into the storyline. Research that once required days in the stacks of books at the library now require only a couple of minutes with a quick Google search at the tap of a finger. Nowadays, Carr finds himself spending a lot of time online and he noticed a difference in the way he reads. Instead of the long in-depth reading that once was, Carr will drift off in his thinking and become fidgety after a page or two of reading. He constantly finds himself dragging his brain back towards the text; the reading that use to come easily to him is now a struggle. Since I have always lived with the luxury of the Internet, I don't know what it is like to spend hours on end reading and researching a single topic from only books or article sources. I have always gone straight to the internet on my computer or phone when I had a simple question. You don't even need to know how to spell because the computer autocorrects misspelled words for you. Even though I haven't had the same history as Carr, I did have the same characteristics he described when reading. I thought Carr might have made the passage he wrote so long on purpose just to prove his point. I got bored and wanted to skip over sentences and paragraphs. I am drawn towards shorter articles and books that I think will be easier to read and critique. I think we live in a world that is constantly moving and in order to keep up we must live a fast-paced life.
     
      The main point of the article was to show how media not only supplies but shapes the process of thought. Carr wanted to point out how internet has taken away the human concentration and contemplation and alters mental habits. It also carries on past the computer screen to TV programs, magazines, and newspaper. Carr said, "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." I think that this is not only true for Carr, but also for me and many others who find themselves stuck in the internet world. I don't think this way of thinking will ever revert back to the way Carr remembered it. I believe our word is constantly changing and evolving and we can only move forward, or become more stupid, from here.