Essay On Rewilding North America

For civilization to evolve, changes must be made. Imagine what the world would be like if the Natives were just alone and no country migrated to North America. Would technology even exist? Would the main weapons be just spears and arrows? Would medicine be invented so people could live long lives without dying of diseases? These are questions that will never have to be answered because the world evolved into a much bigger and better place. The English changed North America no matter what the cost was. Some may argue that the English are the ones to blame for King Phillip’s War, but that is not the case here. The Indians did not want change and overall, it did not work out real well for them. In this case, the war was brutal on both sides. The Natives did not change their customs as much as the English wanted them to. By not assimilating to European values and customs, the Natives caused the war over hatred of English values and traditions and made the world a dangerous place to live in.

If a person wishes to be up to date on what is going on the world around them, in all facets and walks of life, then they must spend a considerable portion of time merely skimming the water of each pool of knowledge, never having the time to truly sink their feet in. This correlates directly back to the massively increased availability of information and writings, whose shoulders Birkerts puts the blame of our loss upon. Nicholas Carr cites a study done on the “behavior of visitors to two popular research sites” which gives its users an even larger degree of online texts.

During the sixteenth century European pilgrims migrated across the Atlantic Ocean to settle in North America. North America had just been introduced to the Western Civilization. The America’s were home to the indigenous people, that were made up of several tribes that were called Indians by the early settlers. Together the Indians and settlers began to thrive. Growth and development in the new world was made possible by the abundant amount of natural resources.

In his writing, Carr explains how his mind has become much more erratic since his use of the internet. “I get fidgety, lose the thread, [and] begin looking for something else to do,” Carr says (572). The availability of information that people have these days is astonishing, and their intake of it is even more considerable. In connection to the information people have access to in our day and age, it has promoted a culture of disinterest and boredom. You are able to see this clearly in a study of online research habits, conducted by scholars from University College London. The subjects displayed “a form of skimming activity,” jumping from source to source. They normally would read no more than one or two pages of a book or article before they would go to another site, seldom returning to any source they had already viewed.

Nicholas Carr’s Is Google Making Us Stupid? explains the impact the Internet is having on his (and others) patience with in depth reading habits, and possibly the way their brain is processing information. The old days of having to spend hours researching a subject are long gone because of the Internet. Having such a powerful tool available at any time can be a good and bad thing wrapped up in the same package. Over the last couple decades, home computer and smartphone ownership has been on a steady rise with most homes now having multiple devices. Therefore, having unlimited information available at all times has become a reality.

It is true that people are becoming more and more reliant on the internet to do everyday tasks. I feel that Carr addresses the issue perfectly in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid”. If we continue to use technology for everything, we will eventually lose all ability to deep read and make those critical connections that are necessary for true comprehension and application. He indicates that “the more [he] uses the web, the more he has to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing” (736). Knowing how difficult it was to read and analyze Carr’s article myself, I fully agree with his claims. Having grown up in a world that has always had technology, I must be hyper-cognizant of the task at hand when it comes to something such as reading, particularly if it is something that I deem less than interesting. When I was finally able to get through the entire essay, I started to think about how much I use the internet. I must admit that

They argue that the way they’re thinking is changing, how their “concentration… starts to drift after two or three pages” and that modern technology doesn’t push them to commit to a certain informational source long enough because “research… can now be done in minutes” (Source 4). The internet seems to have all the answers, which generally shortens the time needed to spend on an activity thus limits the room to think critically. And in this case, not only does it ruin our contemplation but also our concentration and patience because we expect the internet to feed us information. However, this is not all true because the “digital world lowers barriers to self-directed learning” (Source 3). There are many “new forms of media” people can explore with and use to carry out their interests, and they become more involved with their peers when they can learn from each other.

He mentions that others he has talked to that are the literary type, have noticed some of the same situations going on (5). He also makes mention of a pathologist who blogs about computer use and medicine, who states, “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print... Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it” (6). What this tells us is that we use the internet too much and that we no longer retain knowledge because it is readily available at our fingertips. This has not been proven to be the

Carr said “What if I do all my readings on the web not so much because the way I read has changed. i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?” (Carr, pg 7). Since the internet has come into play people have stooped reading books because is easier to just google what they are wanting to know. The internet can change the way someone can process the information on a screen than in a book and how much is actually being consumed by the person. Not only is it changing the way we understand but every technology is an expression of the human will. This allows us to reshape nature to better serve our needs and desires. The internet has the greatest power over how and what we think

According to the United Nations Agency, approximately 3.2 billion people have used the Internet since 2015, which has made a drastic increase since 2000 with there only being 738 million internet users then. That is almost 43% of the world's population that uses the internet. A controversial topic that is commonly being brought up in today's arguments is the use of the internet and how people believe it is becoming such a detriment to our society, because nobody in this generation acknowledges the value of books, or even prefers to use an actual copy such as a paperback. The internet, such as Google, is being classified as lazy or ignorant, but reading a book is labeled as literate or being knowledgeable. Thesis:“Teaching in the #Age Literacy” by Jennifer L. Nelson and “Is Google Making Us stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, both analyze the pros and cons to having the internet and information at our fingertips, how it is affecting the way we read and analyze text and different scientific experiments that have been put to use to decode why we think the way we do now and how to improve our intelligence.

The article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” by Nicholas Carr provides the argument that the internet has turned traditional reading into passive reading that prevents deep-thoughts and intellectual growth. Carr believes that being able to sift through extensive amounts of research and noteworthy articles online in a couple of minutes has turned us into passive readers. He explains that not having to spend time searching for information from books has given us a new habit where we quickly sift through information online and miss or forget many important details. Carr claims that the internet has taken his ability to stay focused and have deep thoughts. He explains that his mind expects quick and efficient passive reading to learn new information. I agree with this claim because just as Carr explains, I also feel as if “someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain.”

In his article for The Atlantic, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Nicholas Carr gives the argument of how the internet is changing the way people are now reading less than they used to a century ago. People all over are becoming less interested in reading material that is longer than a few pages sometimes they can't even comprehend to finish reading a paragraph. The concentration someone had while reading a lengthy book is now gone, one of the smallest distractions can get your attention even just boredom itself can make you drift away from your reading. The more time people spend online, the more their ability to concentrate on their readings diminish until they no longer can stay focused on reading something that is longer than three sentences. Because of the way the use of internet on a daily use has made it more efficient for people to search and find what they were looking for right away, the need to be searching through books or other types of informational mediums, is no longer something that is done as often, sense it would take less time and effort to look something up rather than read through a book to find the

I believe that the Internet is changing how we as a society think and comprehend information because I have experienced this in my personal life. “My mind isn’t going--so far as I can tell-- but it’s changing” (Carr par. 2). Carr recognizes that his mind is changing and I recognize that as well because of such heavy Internet and technology use. When I was younger, I used to be a fairly avid reader. Then I was introduced to the Internet and became more dependent on it for schoolwork, projects and really just for everyday life. My affinity for reading is pretty much gone do to my dependence on the Internet. A lot of my friends experienced this too. “When I mention my troubles with reading to friends, many say they’re suffering from similar afflictions” (Carr par. 6). A great majority of my friends would agree with this quote as much as I do. My friend circle have given up reading because of their major dependence on the Internet. It also does not help that my generation was born into this world of overwhelming technology. We have grown up with the world at our fingertips, and reading books has become a secondary way to obtain information. It is even an annoyance to read sometimes because books are cumbersome and heavy. While the Internet is handy for many things, it appears to be altering our minds even if we are oblivious to it. It changes how information is presented and processed by our brains. The Internet is a great tool for finding information, but its distractions and sheer overwhelming volume of websites creates shortened attention spans and lack of

In his Is Google Making Us Stupid?, Nicholas Carr contends that the overload of information is “chipping away his capacity for concentration and contemplation”(315). He admits with easy accessibility of information online, the process of research has became much simpler(Carr 315). Yet such benefit comes with a cost. Our brains are “rewired” as the cost of such convenience(Carr 316). As the result, “we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s...but it’s a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking”(Carr 317). Carr argues the forming of such habits can prevent us from deep reading and thinking. In fact, he provides may evidences in the

The way of learning and reading has changed dramatically over many generations because of new technological advances. Learning is the knowledge acquired through experience, study, or being taught. In Birkerts essay, he explains that learning and how we gather information has changed over time. He says newspapers, magazines, brochures, advertisements, and labels are things that are around individuals every day. These are things that individuals will read to gain knowledge of certain things that are going on. For example, individuals will read labels on food items to see what the food is made out of because some individuals are allergic to certain ingredients and need to know this information. Time has changed the way individuals learn. Learning at one time was all from books and individuals taking notes on those books. Years ago, books were rare and that is what individuals used to learn and when they had a book they had to take out all they could from that book. Learning has gone from just books to many different ways of receiving information. Today’s big new way of learning is from the internet. Individuals have gone from staring at a book for hours to typing a question they have into the internet and getting results back from many sources. Birkerts describes this in his essay, “As we now find ourselves at a cultural watershed-as the fundamental process of transmitting information is shifting from mechanical to circuit-driven, from page to screen-it may be time to ask how