Is Google Making Us Stupid? (post 6)

Is Google making us stupid? Carr is not the first person to raise this question about what effects the internet is having on us as individuals and as a society.   Carr is able to recognize that our thinking patterns and writing patterns are changing, but is this for the better or the worse?  Instead of sitting and indulging in pages of a great work of literature, people now can click from web page to web page skimming for the main idea of the text and rarely bothering to move on to the second page.  We no longer absorb the information and transmit it into long term memory, but why would we? Finding the answer to any question is only a click away. After all, in Carr’s opinon, “The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive.”

Mark Baurlein, in his book The Dumbest Generation, examines teenage internet and reading habits. Discussing things such as Twitter or Facebook, he writes, “that is the genuine significance of the Web to the 17-year-old mind, not the universe of knowledge brought to their fingertips, but an instrument of nonstop peer contact.” (Baurlein 134)  I believe this quote more accurately describes our class’ online web use.  We are not using the web to substitute learning or knowledge, but more as a way to be constantly stimulated and in contact with peers. We are a generation, and class, of young adults the world has yet to experience. Wether the web and our new, fluid way of thinking and short attention span for words will make us dumb, only time can tell.

Bibliography:

Bauerlein, Mark, . The Dumbest Generation. New York: Penguin Group, 2009. Print