Humanity is known for being blindly susceptible to aspects of its own creation. In recent years technology has been labeled as the main authority amongst society and is said to be responsible for the numerous shifts in daily life, specifically those related to the evolution of the human mind that go unnoticed. However, this development has not taken on a positive connotation after such extensive advancements in the digital world. In articles such as Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid” and Gary Small and Vorgan Gigi’s “Meet Your iBrain,” people have been drawing attention to the way technology “is rapidly and profoundly altering our brains” (Small and Gigi 1). Carr even mentions that society has been involved in a struggle of discovering who is doing the thinking: them or their technology. Using articles such as these and peer interviews this paper will dissertate the influence technology has had on the human mind and society’s actions.
One subject of discussion within the theory of technology’s impact on society is the idea that the gears have shifted and left the technology in control of the user. Carr describes the human brain as being “almost infinitely malleable”, (3) leaving one vulnerable to change whether one knows it or not. Using different digital devices at such a constant and consistent rate allows for the technology to slowly, or sometimes quickly, overpower one’s own thoughts and choices. In addition to Carr’s observation, he also makes a personal statement saying that “over the past few years [he’s] had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with [his] brain” (1). This feeling of lost control explains why people have found themselves building a world based on their technology rather than building one that incorporates it. When allowing oneself to use technology, one is also giving the technology a chance to use oneself in return. Choices to go out or stay in, text or call, type or write, etc. are all often made based on digital devices and efficiency. This effect, however, is often undetected, especially given the fact that the biggest users of technology are ones who have never truly lived without it in one form or another.
Examples of these aftereffects
Kids, teens and adults are now constantly navigating the internet or using some sort of technology. In the article “Is the Onslaught Making Us Crazy” by Tony Dokoupil, different psychologist claim that technology has a bad influence on the human mind. Throughout the text, real life examples, showing psychological breakdowns, are used to support the statement.
Carr and Cascio’s outlooks on “what technology is” were similar, but they had different perspectives on how technology affects our society. Carr notices that while technology keeps artificial information moving forward and huge amounts of information at our disposal, it also affects our natural ability to think for ourselves. He is appealing to pathos because he senses that this common problem is making our society less dependent with their selves and more dependent towards technology. He uses his article to appeal to the fact that he notices the changes in the ways that he used to think came from the use of technology. Cascio, on the other hand, thinks that technology is what makes our society so efficient. He uses ethos to propose that the concept of co-evolution between human and technological interaction has helped us adapt to the ever-changing world around us. Carr’s and Cascio’s perspectives toward the effects of technology usage are the starting point of contrast between the two articles.
istraction. Did that get your attention? While technology is the very thing that provides us with answers, it is also the cause of our distractions. Alina Tugend essay “Multitasking Can Make You Lose… Um… Focus” and Nicholas Carr’s essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid” reflects on the purpose of how technology can cause delusional reactions upon our brain. Tugend is a columnist for the New York Times and also an author who appeared in the Los Angeles Times on many occasions. As for Carr, he has written widely on technology, business, and culture while observing the latest technologies and related issue. Together they seem like vastly different individuals, but Tugend and Carr’s essay essentially serve the same purpose to their audience. Authors Carr and Tugend reveal the purpose of harmful technology and the limitations cast upon the human brain through individual implementations of pathos, examples, and the voice of their tone.
“…it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence” (224). With this thought, Nicholas Carr ends his 2010 book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Here, he attempts to convince readers that ultimately, technology has the power to be our cognitive undoing as humans. Carr’s arguments towards this idea and whether or not they are convincing and thorough will be explored. While some may consider the information he provides to be unconnected, I find each of the topics he covers to be powerful in his argument that technology can be a dangerous tool in humanity’s progress towards a higher intelligence.
People of all ages suffer from the negative effects of long-term exposure to technology. As technology continues to evolve, the human brain struggles to keep up, and ultimately loses a multitude of once valued abilities, such as the ability to focus, and deep intellectual thinking. People grow severely attached to these new artificial intelligence, that they forget there are other real people whom they can communicate with and share thoughts with. As Fahrenheit 451 has illustrated, our society has evolved to interact with technology on a more personal level, change the way humans interact with one-another, shift the way political subjects are dealt with, and change what the roles of certain people in a community are and how those communities function.
The main idea that Carr tries to support throughout his article is that of alteration. Carr takes a stand for the idea that technology, specifically the internet, is the cause of the recent change in the way people think. Throughout Carr’s article, it is clear that the change being referenced is the way people think, read, and ultimately understand what they read in books, magazines, internet, and media. In the article, the author uses his own experiences and detailed accounts of how others feel about the way their minds work since the
In today's society there is no escape from technology. We are completely submerged in our iPhone, ipads, computers, and gaming systems. These gadgets give us the opportunity to be connected to each other and the rest of the world at all times. But, this is not a glorious step in history. Technology blinds us from the real world. As John Tudor said, “Technology makes it possible for people to gain control over everything, except technology.” We may run our lives with the help of our iPhones and computers, but do these forms of technology in turn control us? At first glance these new advances are greater steps to making our lives easier. But, when examined closely a large portion of technology is the cause of many problems in our society.
In our modern day society, it is extremely common for one idea to be represented in many different ways. Both Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and M.T Anderson’s novel Feed, the broad idea of the relationship between humans and technology is portrayed. Carr’s article complains of how technology changes the way we think. Carr instigates the idea that we are losing our passion for learning as a result of the internet and search engines such as Google. These advancements, Carr proposes, lead to a world where our intelligence “flattens into artificial intelligence”. In a similar fashion, Anderson’s fictional novel addresses a set of characters who live on our planet at an arbitrary time in the future. These characters, or at least most of them, have their lives completely controlled by technology, in the form of an implanted chip, which represents to its followers the feed, a social networking site of sorts that is all-encompassing. The story shows how these technological advancements have irreversibly changed the world of the characters, where the characters are not themselves without technology. Both pieces extensively address the relationship between man and technology. While the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid” and the novel Feed stem from two completely different genres, both pieces encapsulate the idea that technology is leading to a loss of individuality among people.
Technology is swallowing the old ways of learning. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr and “How Computers Change the Way We Think” by Sherry Turkle both bring light to the idea that technology, computers and the internet, is changing the human thought process. Carr believes that technology is “tinkering with the brain, remapping the neural circuitry, and reprogramming the memory” (53). He writes that humans are becoming the machines, obsessed with “efficiency and immediacy” (55). Turkle bases her essay on the theory that we are becoming a computer culture. She states that “we live in a culture of simulation […] in programmed worlds in reassuring environments where the rules are clear.” (303). Technology is creating
From telephones and computers to digital cameras and GPS systems, it is clear that the expansion of technology has developed rapidly throughout the years. Every year there seems to be new and appealing innovations taking over the market. Whether it is a new camera model or a cell phone that fits in the palm of your hand, we notice how much technology can advance in only a couple of years - sometimes even months. It has always been a question if perhaps these new forms of technology are rotting our brains and making us become more dependent on them; it is hard to think where technology will take us years from now. At times, especially with the modern generation, it seems like people do not use technology for its potential for moral
The essay “How Computers Change the Way We Think” was written by Sherry Turkle, a well-known professor at MIT. Professor Turkle teaches Social Studies of Science and Technology, and she has written nine books and multiple essays on the relationship between humans and technology today. The thesis of Turkle’s essay is that the technology used to help humans work/think has started changing the way people think, and will continue to if there is no change. Overall, Turkle’s essay is very well-written, and has an important warning for all to heed: there are many negative consequences of the technology used by humans on a daily
Carr’s work, he worries that human brains are becoming simplified and replaced by technology. Due to this change, our concentration and determination will slowly fade away as time goes on. In this information era, people can enjoy the dazzling and decorated websites and passively accept their messages. He repeatedly emphasizes that humans’ abilities related to reading and imagining are largely disappearing. The author describes what it is like when he works by saying, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski” (Carr 410). Carr warns us of a possible negative change due to technology. Similarly, Mr. Pontin in the presentation also shows his concern about how humans treat technology. He argues that current technology, like energy and aerospace, has almost no commercial value that few companies are willing to invest in these fields. By contrast, he did present four negations on misunderstanding about the power of technology. He claims that the current problems blocking the development of technology are little policy supporting, failure of the political system, not understanding problems, and blindly thinking technology is the problem. The real concern he thought is that we have not had the eagerness and passion like the past to hugely go forward developing technology, but instead stopping to enrich our personal
In this short article, Nicholas Carr shares his views on technology and its impact on society. He brilliantly weaves stories of technological advances from centuries ago, such as the invention of writing, or the typewriter, and the outcry it caused at the time because it was different. In addition, Carr contrasts stories on the rise of the internet and changes this tool is driving in the human condition today. Technology made people think, act and speak in ways other than what was considered the norm eons ago, much like it is doing today. The author outlines the nervousness people exhibit when it comes to technology and the impact on how people learn, and more importantly
We all know technology is a good thing, right? Or is it? We can all come up with reasons why technology is helpful or appropriate like we can for a particular medicine. And while some drugs are really great to cure or prevent a disease, sometimes the side effects outweigh any possible benefit. The same is true with technology. Some common negative side effects of technology are kids playing on their phones instead of going outside to play or young people not interacting face-to-face as much as they used to. Parenting is an area that has suffered since the rise in technology, specifically with phone use.
Since the beginning of time, the human population has strived to live simpler lives. We have spent generations, creating innovations within technology to ensure our lives would always be more simplistic than those who lived centuries before us. People now have the ability to update their Facebook status’, map the human genome to target strands of DNA that can be disastrous to one’s health, send out amber alerts nationwide, and create plants that are resistant to pesticides. Many fields, such as medicine, law enforcement, and entertainment have benefited greatly from advancements in technology which has inevitably changed the way society operates. However, with the abundance of technology available, society has developed an unhealthy relationship where we now rely on technology too heavily. Technology has rendered our minds incapable of the ability to play, communicate, and live our lives in the moment, despite its positive additions to our society.