Reading Responce #5

Internet; Friend or Foe

In Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” he explains his views on many facets of the internet’s effects on daily life. Carr opens his article with an ominous paragraph from the end of Stanley Kubrick’s movie 2001: A space Odyssey where HAL, a super computer, pleads for its life. As astronaut Dave Bowman disconnects the memory circuits that control HAL’s artificial brain “Dave, my mind is going.” HAL says, longingly “I can feel it. I can feel it.” Carr whole heartedly agrees with these words as he states “Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry…” Then he goes on to talk about his theory, that the internet is changing the way he thinks and processes information. Carr explains that he now he finds it harder to stay focused on books and long articles, finding that his mind begins to wander looking for additional stimuli. The kind found when “surfing the net,” quick clicks to hyperlinks, while scanning headlines and blog posts.

It turns out Carr is dead on about the remapping of his brain by the internet. The article “Web surfing boosts brain circuitry in older adults” by Lesley Ciarula Taylor found at thestar.com Thursday, February 11, 2010 Toronto Edition tells about Dr. Gary Small, a professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA conducted an experiment using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while participants searched the “Web” and while they read a book. The research findings show that internet use engages more neural circuitry than reading in those with prior internet experience. So this is showing all of that information being hurtled at you at the speed of the “Web,” is actually helping to keep your brain strong and develop new neural pathways.

In no way am I advocating that the internet is all good and we should all spend as much time as we can there. To the contrary just like anything else in life, “everything in moderation.” You can have too much of a good thing. In this case it’s almost like drugs you can lose your wife, family and possibly our life with too much internet use. Like in the case where the kid in Japan died from starvation and malnutrition while playing World of Warcraft. At michaelhyatt.com Karyn Brownlee has an article “7 Strategies for Keeping the Internet from Taking Over Your Life” where she states ”The time invested—or rather wasted—online can often preclude other more important activities such as in-person fellowship, marital intimacy, housework, and overall job performance.” Brownlee talks about how the internet can go from a friendly tool to an obsession and even an addiction. She also shares that there is a quick quiz at netaddiction.com for internet users to see where they rate on the addiction scale. Finally she shares her 7 Strategies for Keeping the Internet from Taking Over Your Life. They are simple yet seemingly effective ways to help manage your time on the Web. For instance “Stay true to your personal mission while online. If you don’t know what that is, don’t Google it. Try prayer instead.” Even if you’re not the praying sort, managing your time seems like a good strategy. The internet is a tool, and at the end of the day we need to put our tools away and just relax.

Reading Response 5

Maria Gasacao

February 11, 2010

English 100 A

Reading Response 5

In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, Nick Carr suggests that the use of the internet (such as searching, emailing, blogging and watching videos) is one of the reason why people have difficulty concentrating, comprehending and reading lengthy written or online text. Nick Carr states that, “I’m not thinking the way that I used to think. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something to do. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle”. Carr’s statement shows how he changed from a bookworm into someone that cant even concentrate in reading two pages of text. He believes that his use of the internet affected his concentration and comprehension because his mind is so used to taking in information the way that the internet distributes them. On the other hand, Carr is not the only one that feels this change. Carr shares that, “when I mention my troubles with reading to my friends and acquaintances. . . most of them – many say they are having similar experiences. The more they use the web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing.” A blogger named Bruce Friedman, who blogs about computers in medicine, shares, “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print”. All of these personal experiences that Nick Carr shared were all related and all connected back to the use of the internet. They all suggested that their gradual use of the web have decreased their ability to absorb all of the information that they are reading. One evidence that supports Carr’s claim is an experiment that was organized by the scholars from the University of London. They examined the behaviors of online visitors on two popular research websites. The scholars states that, “It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of reading are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for the quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.” In this statement the scholars reported that the visitors showed that most of them didn’t read thoroughly the articles that they searched; instead they just skimmed through the article and just looked for the important information. Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University says, “We are not only what we read, we are how we read.” Wolf shares that she is afraid that our reading style in the internet will decrease our capability to interpret and absorb text.

I admit that I too demonstrates this kind of reading since I find it easier to distinguish which is the important information through out the whole text. I agree to what Carr said and also Maryanne Wolf, that our constant use of the internet is affecting our comprehension and concentration when reading a written or online text because my experience with reading some articles online and also written confirms it. For example, when I have to study my Psychology book which I have to take notes and instead of reading the whole text, I would only skim though it and look for the important ideas. I think that I got used to the availability, accurateness and the quickness of information that the net offers. Just one search and it gives me everything that is related to my search which is very efficient and is not time consuming. These days it is hard to do all of my work without surfing the internet since especially doing my homework. I believe that it is not bad to use the net all the time but I think that people today should balance their use of the internet and reading a book traditionally. I guess that the internet gives us the facts that we want easily, and we don’t have to really interpret what that information really meant. Although the web gives me comfort to get all the articles or information that I want without leaving my room or with just one search it still doesn’t replace a traditional reading.