In Google Making Us Stupid?
Is Google making us stupid? Technically, no. We’re not becoming stupid; we’re just becoming more dependent on technology. But it is not only goggle that is at fault. It is also things like texting and even instant messaging. We live in an era where everything is basically technological. But this advances in technology; it seems have been affecting the way we think. Now with just a clicked on the button we get the answer instantly versus reading long books or texts that take a larger amount of time.
My mind will get caught up in the narrative or the turns or the arguments, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, and begin looking for something else to do (Carr, Pg. 18)
Technological advances are also affecting the way we write. Most computers or Word programs correct our grammar mistakes. So by these machines automatically fixing our errors we don’t ever get the chance to correct them. Not only do they also automatically fix errors they also have the ability to change the tone of the writing.
Sometime in 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche bought a typewriter-a Malling-Hansen Writing ball to be precise…But the machine had a subtler effect on his work. One of Nietzsche’s friends, a composer, noticed a change in the style of his writing. His already terse prose had become even tighter, more telegraphic. “Perhaps you will through this instrument even take to a new idiom,” the friend wrote in a letter, noting that, in his own work, his “thoughts” in music and language often depend on the quality of pen and paper”(Carr, Pg. 20)
Why are we becoming more dependent to these technological advances? Is because our brain in adaptable. Many people believe that the human brain stops growing when it reaches adulthood, but the truth is that it doesn’t. The human brain is constantly changing into ways that may or may not benefit the person.
People used to think that our mental meshwork, the dense connections formed among the 100 billion or so neutrons inside our skulls, was largely fixed by the time we reached adulthood. But brain researchers have discovered that that’s not the case. James Olds, a professor of neuroscience who directs the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Madison University, says that even the adult mind “is very plastic”. Nerve cells routinely break old connection and form new connections. “The brain” according to Olds, “has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions” (Carr, Pgs. 20).
Goggle and other technological advances aren’t making us stupid. It’s just that we are becoming more dependable. Our brains are becoming so dependable on these aids that it doesn’t really require itself to think since the answer is always placed in front of it. There is no challenge or need in learning anything new. The computer database is huge with tons and tons of questions. Not only that but Word, texting, instant messaging, etc. has made the task of writing even easier than what it used to be before. This problem has existed forever, not only today but also in the 1800’s. So it is not a new trend. Tasks become easier with more technology.