The Pros And Cons Of Digital Technology

It is a habit for the older generation to compare today’s society to their own, and often time, it is not in the favor of the youth. A prominent though is that the current generation is being corrupted by technology and because of it are at a disadvantage intellectual. One certain critic, Mark Bauerlein, in his book, The Dumbest Generation, makes a bold claim that anyone under thirty are part of a generation dumber than any before. However, studies show a different trend. Technology is not lowering intelligence but changing the way people learn. Because of the influence of the digital world, the current generation has shift to a new way of learning that in no way make them dumber.

In the article, Our Semi-Literate Youth? Not so Fast written by Andrea A. Lunsford, Lunsford tells about how youth today are perceived to be less intelligent and too dependant upon technology. She goes on to show that she doesn’t agree with that assumption, she states that she has been working with college writes for over thirty years and has conducted studies showing the opposite. Lunsford thinks that with the advances in technology students are actually gaining more of a range of writing technique and greater adaptability to the changing audiences that students encounter. Through the exposure to different social medias and excess to people across the world, students have become more well rounded writers and show no decrease from the writing

In his essay “Does the Internet Make You Dumber?”, Nicholas Carr argues that technology leaves us unable to be as thorough in our previous mental abilities and distracts us, through changes to our mental pathways and biological mechanisms. Nicholas Carr uses the appeal of data, the frightening effects of living in the digital age, and his own conclusions from his exhaustive research to structure his examination.

Technology is both a blessing and a curse. It can make the lives of people better or it can completely make everything inconvenient. Technology has gone from something that was once complex to something used on the daily. It, in fact, may be destroying and taking over society. This idea is proposed in both “By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benet and “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury, however, presents the most disturbing and cruel views on technology and society.

Often times, the older generation gives the Internet a bad reputation. There are numerous articles claiming the Internet is generating a doltish society. Nicholas Carr is one of many writers who addresses the topic of our supposed intellectual decline entitled ‘Is the Internet Dumbing Us Down?’ According to Carr and multiple psychologists, the Internet can inhibit cognition. Because these people didn’t grow up with Internet, like the Millennials did, they fear the power of the World Wide Web. Like any great tool, if abused, the Internet can thwart progression. However, in this century, the Internet is an extremely popular and efficacious learning device. I cannot speak on anyone’s behalf but, the Internet was my first teacher, and it continues

People claim that new developments have caused kids to be so dependent on their devices, that they can't think for themselves. This claim can also be turned around by saying that technology has given kids more opportunities and chances to learn, and in particular, more opportunities to write (Source 7, Clive Thompson). An example of this is a study done at Stanford University, where it was discovered that Stanford students did a stunning 38 percent of their writing outside of the classroom (Source 7, Clive Thompson). With the developments of E-mail, texting, and social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, younger people are constantly writing in their every day lives. In the past, people would, for the most part, stop writing once the finishes their education. Now however, people are more comfortable, and more used to, writing. And while the argument that technology has decreased level of the vocabulary and vernacular of young people is true in some cases, the increase in writing shown by young people has led to a greater ability to convey information to other people, and a greater comfort in talking to people they don't know (Source 7, Clive Thompson). As Andrea Lunsford says, "I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek Civilization" (Source 7, Clive

The younger generation of Americans, those under the age of thirty, are often criticized as being the “dumbest generation”. Many Americans blame technology for making “goods so plentiful, schooling so accessible, diversion so easy, and liberties so copious” (Bauerlein). Many are posing the question: Is the increasing ease in life causing our intelligence to slip? Those under thirty are not the dumbest generation, in fact, technology is expanding, changing, and pushing in new directions intelligence and mental capacity.

Nicholas Carr’s target audience is anyone who uses technology, whether they are the younger generations for it or the more traditional generations against it. He establishes common ground by pointing out some of the positive, along with the facts to back up his theory on the negative. His motive for writing this essay is to provide a connection between the increase of technology to the decrease abilities in learning behaviors.

In Nicholas Carr’s news article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (2008), he expresses his concerns on how technology is changing the mental capacity of our minds. The author first provides anecdotal evidence by giving relevant quotes from reputable sources, then he introduces notable historical trends as examples to support his claim, and to conclude he challenges his readers to rethink their views on the internet. His purpose is to inform readers on the negative effects of using the internet. He seems to have a younger, more tech-savvy audience in his mind, as they are exposed to technology at a young age. One can agree with Carr because as technology such as the internet evolve, our minds adapt at the cost our cognitive abilities.

There has been debate on how the growth of technological inventions is influencing the way humans think. For teenagers and young adults in my generation, it’s rather easy to adapt to new advancements since we grew up being introduced to so many inventions that took over the entire world’s interest in the past decade. I personally prefer to multitask than to focus on one task at hand and I can record more information in a less amount of time when I type on a keyboard. Therefore, I have an easier time learning and getting things done with techy tools than when I sit upright with just a pen and paper. But most skeptics that assume technology is a disease would argue that technology’s versatility and convenience could be a distracting to our thought process. In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” author Nicholas Carr believes that the progress in technological innovation has had a derailing effect on our cognition; however, in the article, “Smarter Than You Think,“ Clive Thompson addresses how collaborating with today’s technological advances can actually give more opportunities to bring about more intelligence. Although Carr addresses how technology can be a major challenge to our critical thinking skills, Thompson arguably provides better evidence to show how technology actually challenges our skills to for the better by teaching us how to be more aware, giving us the opportunity to access the most amount of information, and creating a higher field of expertise for the

Nicholas Carr, a technology, culture and economics writer, examines the impact technological innervation has on the way people act and think on a daily basis. His recent difficulties concentrating while reading books and lengthy articles has led him to believe that his time spent online may be contributing to his lacking concentration and contemplation skills. By prefacing his argument with anecdotes from his friends and acquaintances, he is convinced that a new type of reading and interpreting is emerging. Unlike the instinctive skill of speech, reading and writing are learned characteristics that Carr believes are being taught in a new way thanks to the amount of time people spend on the Internet. He believes that the neural circuitry of the brain is beginning to be shaped by the Internet, rather than by the books people read, the way it was shaped in the past. This provides the reasoning as to why Carr thinks that Internet may be making the population stupid.

Social media is used in a variety of different ways, whether it be Instagram or Facebook to post pictures, snapchat or texting for communication, and twitter or blog posts for posting text. No matter what social media you’re thinking about, writing is always involved. Clive Thompson is a Canadian author, blogger, and technology writer, and in his chapter, “Public Thinking,” out of his book Smarter Than You Think he argues that people today are writing better than people did in the past possibly because the use of social media and writing publicly. Thompson emphasizes this chapter to both the previous generation, and the current generation, to people that might not understand the new generation of technology and how the excessive use of the internet could actually be a useful tool. In this paper I will analyze Thompson’s claims, find evidence in attempt to support the claims, find weak and strong parts of Thompson’s writing, and note an assumption.

Have you ever once stopped to think that technology might be making us stupid? Or is it making us smarter? Well Nicholas Carr stated “The fact is, you'll never think deeply if you're always googling, texting, and surfing.” Furthermore, Nicholas Carr says that ,”We are never really using our brains because of technology and the benefits we have today to make our life easy. In this essay I will present three of the top reasons on why modern day technology is having a great effect on are IQ scores. So first we'll see why we're always distracted. Then we'll talk about why finding lots of information quickly doesn't make us smart it's how we think about that information deeply. Last but not least we'll talk about why technology makes us smarter.

The students in school all the way to university level that are currently studying are considered the “Digital Native” generation (Prensky 1-6). This is the generation that was born into technology and have always had computers, video games, cameras and mobile phones as part of their lives. They have grown up playing computer or video games, emailing, instant messaging and browsing the internet. They have always had a plethora of information at their fingertips and this has shaped their ways of thinking and processing data, as compared to the previous generations. While some speculate as to whether their early exposure to digital technology has affected their physical brain structure and patterns of thought, it is agreed that they definitely approach the world differently. (Prensky 1).

Before the Internet, students did work in books and teachers taught through books. Almost everyone in the same grade was taught the same, with a limited curriculum until technology took over the world. Now that society has endless resources from the advancements of technology, students, teachers, and others use it to expand their knowledge on certain subjects and also to complete their work faster. The effects of technology is explained in the text, “What’s the Matter with Kids Today?” by Amy Goldwasser, she argues that the Internet actually aids kids in developing skills in writing and problem solving. Steven Pinker also defends the use of technology in his essay, “Mind Over Mass Media” by claiming that people just need to control their use of technology.