As a Google user and supporter, I found the title of
this article a little bit hypercritical; however, after reading Mr. Carters
opinion about the web and society, I did see a lot of truth of what he had to
say. There is no argument in the fact that the internet has made information
much more readily available, but thinking deeper, one can see how this is both
a good thing and a bad thing. As a society I think that we are sacrificing
personal insight and contemplation for productivity.
How many times have you been on the computer trying
to do one thing, but end up 20 minutes later, doing something completely else? For
me, this is a very common occurrence. Even going online to blog quickly gets
turned into checking my email or shopping online. All of the ads on websites
are there to distract us and they break our concentration. My point with this
is that when reading a book, there is little to be distracted from, but when online
there is a plethora of distractions pulling at your focus. The insight and deep
thinking is much easier to obtain when completely focused, and it is much
harder to get to that state online.
One of the biggest things that I have taken away
from this article is that there is good and bad to everything. Mr. Carr touched
on this when he gave examples of similar situations in history regarding the
printing press and writing. Squarciafico worried that the printing press would
lead to intellectual laziness and while he was right, because of the amount of
good that came out of it, nobody regards the printing press as a harmful
invention. I think the same thing is happening with the internet. While people
like Mr. Carr are correct in saying that the internet is stifling creativity
and insight, the benefits that we receive from the web seem to outweigh that
cost.
Hello Sam! I hope your summer is going well. You made some very good points in your blog and I agreed with most of them. Similarly to you, I may go online for one thing and then find myself doing something totally different, which isn't always a good thing. I don't think that the internet is a bad thing, but we may abuse all that it is granting us at times. Yes, insight and deep thinking is much easier to obtain when completely focused, but I believe most people go on the internet to find information that will help them later on for that deeper thinking. In the end, I have to agree with you on the fact that the benefits we receive from the web seem to outweigh the cost.
ReplyDeleteHey Sam! I like when you said, "As a society I think that we are sacrificing personal insight and contemplation for productivity." It definitely seems like in our world today the main focus is productivity. People always want to get things done as quickly and efficiently as possible and Google does help to do this. Then again, as you said, the Internet is a lot more distracting than reading a book. Being distracted is not being the most efficient, so the Internet may not always be the most productive choice. Ultimately, I agree with you that there is good and bad.
ReplyDeleteI totally know what you mean when u said, "How many times have you been on the computer trying to do one thing, but end up 20 minutes later, doing something completely else?" I always get distracted when on the internet because there is so much going on! I am not quite convinced that this is really bad for our brain but it does show how much the internet has to offer. Nice post Sam!
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Sam! I can totally relate to what you are saying--in fact, I think everyone can. The internet, although it is fairly good at providing us with endless information, is best at being a distraction. I also liked how you stressed that there is a good and bad side to everything. Very true words. I think the internet is more on the good side than bad, but then again it has its downfalls. And some downfalls can be bigger than others.
ReplyDeleteHi Sam, great work! I agreed with all of your points. I would like to add that the author was envious of the tools that have been made available to us. While I believe that all teens are guilty of wandering away from what they originally set off to do on the internet; the pros of the internet is something that cannot be overlooked, regardless of the cons that Carr so easily brought to our attention. Have a great last few days of Summer!
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