Sort of a counterpoint to our course and how wonderful technology is (can be)...This story was broadcast on NPR in June of 2008.
Click the link, then listen to this news story and post your thoughts.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91543814
Proactive Pathways for Engagement
20 hours ago
Is the Internet making us stupid? A very provocative title indeed. Nicholas Carr's article which suggests that the Internet encourages 'laziness' amongst its users is very palatable indeed (within academic work). Researching assignments on the Internet can be an invaluable tool. However, relying on the web as the sole means of information does not encourage true academic integrity. One could argue that the web offers a band aid on a situation that warrants a stitch. I agree with the core components of the article. There is no quick fix in academia; it is a life long process of becoming acquainted with new research methods available. Having said that, we must embrace the web, but not let it be the sole means of our learning.
ReplyDeleteIs Google Making Us Stupid>?
ReplyDeleteI don't think that Google is making people stupid. Before I continue, I do have to say that I really haven't lived in a world without Google, as I am from the new generation of computer kids!
I think google has actually sharpened my research skills. I know how to look for the key works, scan through the information I don't need and look for what I want. For me, Google is a starting point, a place to get general information and a direction to where I want to go with my research. From there I can go to the books, where I can find more detailed information.
Google simply speeds up the process. I find I spend less time searching for information because I am not flipping through books in a library, going through tons of information and getting no where. The internet does shape the way we think, but I think our minds are shaped positively from this experience. I have learned how to start broadly by using the internet and then make my way to the specifics by using books.
The internet allows me to start my search and make my search more efficient. As for the loss of concentration when reading books as compared to using the internet, do you know any research material that is EXCITING?> If you do, please send me a copy! If I'm interested in what I am researching, then I will read word for word, but if I am not interested then I am going to scan the article
Is the internet making us stupid? This is a two sided coin indeed. On the one hand we have a vast variety of information at our fingertips which makes researching anything rather easy. And then on the other hand, there are always people who will take advantage of the fact that someone else has probably done the work that you are looking for. I feel the internet has many advantages, just look at the way we are blogging about this topic right now! The internet makes assignments easier, but a greater advantage is communication in general. I can log onto this blog and see other people’s ideas as soon as they are posted, instead of waiting until the next class. Back to the negative side of things, students can also as easily look for answers to problems instead of learning the skills needed to figure them out themselves. Regardless of whether people see the internet as a good thing or a bad thing, we are going to have to adjust to the fact that the internet is not going anywhere and will be more present in society as time goes on.
ReplyDeleteA quick Google search shows hits on the following strings:
ReplyDeleteAre video games making us stupid?
Mobile phones making us stupid?
Television making us stupid?
I can imagine the commentators of the day saying the same thing about radio and how it will be the death of the written word and the rebirth of illiteracy in America.
It would seem that with the advent of each new technology the question is inevitably asked. If each of these, and the multitude of other advancements not mentioned, indeed caused 'stupidity' we would have long since been reduced to morons.
Intelligence is not a function of experience, or the tools one uses to go about their daily lives. It cannot be absorbed from text books or gleaned from the words of lecturers or taken from ones own research. It is the potential to learn, to understand and apply knowledge to the situations that confront us in everyday life.
I would submit to the gentleman being interviewed, his findings that '..he lacks the same concentration he once had...' might try the following next time he reads:
Turn off the computer
Turn off the blackberry
Turn off the television
Turn off the cell phone
Turn on a light
Ask the kids to give him an hour to read
Ask his wife if they can talk about her new job in an hour
Ask his collegues to call back at 4 or better yet not answer the phone till he is finished
It certainly helped me concentrate and write this blog....
After analyzing Carr’s arguments I have come to the realization that the subject can be looked at two very different ways.
ReplyDeleteCarr argues that the internet, and Google in particular, is at the driving force of what is making our society so called ‘stupider.’ He suggests that the internet offers a new way of thinking in which our brains have adapted to. It is a way of learning and gaining knowledge that is based upon skimming, jumping from page to page and only picking out the important word or phrase. By using the internet as our primary source of knowledge and information we do indeed lose the innate ability to pick up a book, read it, analyze it and learn in the ‘old fashioned way.’ I agree when Carr says that after having rewired our brain to this new medium of learning it makes it difficult to read a book or stay concentrated enough to get through a longer article. Having the wealth of the internet at our fingertips allows us to become lazy and to ignore the many different sources of knowledge that exist and instead letting us resort to the easy way out. After having listened to his argument I do agree that yes, the internet does have a way of making us ‘stupider’ by taking away from previous methods and means of learning.
Although I do agree with much of what Carr is suggesting, I cannot fully agree to his theory. Yes, the internet takes away from our capability to read and analyze text however it offers such a wide breadth of information that it is hard to see it invaluable. The internet is not necessarily making us stupid but it is rather reprogramming our brains to learn and take in information in a much different way than we had grown up with. It allows us to look to many different reputable sources on a particular topic and gain more insightful thoughts in the time it may have taken us to read only a few short chapters of a book. With the internet and Google at our demand, we are able to search almost any subject imaginable; anywhere and at any time. Even though the internet teachers our mind to skim and jump around from page to page we still are becoming knowledgeable on the important parts of each article. So although it may seem to make us stupider as it is taking away from what was before, the desired way to learn, the internet is actually opening up a whole new world of knowledge and information we could not gain from a few books. As a society based in the technological age, the internet has and will take over our way of acquiring information due to the very fact that it encompasses everything we may want to know about a subject.
Overall, I was definitely satisfied with Carr’s arguments and believe there is much truth in what he has to say. However, due to the time and age in which this broadcast was aired, it is hard to deem the internet as being invalid and a reason for our stupidity because it is doing much more than that. It is allowing us to discover the world, just in a new and different way.
Speaking as a child of the 70's, I love the Internet, google, etc. I remember having to look information up in the family's encyclopedia set and I also remember not being able to find information (scary days!). I do not agree with Mr. Carr. Although skimming while reading may be at a faster pace and include clicking around to more resources, skimming in general is not new to the Internet generation. I click and skim until I find something I want to read and think about. I do not skim my student's blogs, I read them. I do not think it's a choice: skimmer with no depth of thought or reader who critically thinks. I think everyone is a little of both before the Internets creation and after it. To me it is more about the motivation behind the learning. I would also like to note that I know a lot of people, including myself, who are still book readers as well as web surfers. For me it is not "harder when offline to read books". As educators we need to teach the 'Internet Generation' how to analyze and critically evaluate information from the web. Don't allow the Internet to make you stupid or your students.
ReplyDelete“Is the internet making us stupid?” is a very interesting topic of discussion and Carr does a great job of covering this topic and making a lot of stretches in my opinion on how the internet makes one think. Needless to say I do not agree with his claims, accusations or bold statements. First he examines the fact that the internet has led people to no longer, think, contemplate or absorb information, but yet we skim, overlook and speed read until we find what it useful to us. I think that Carr needs to do more research on the subject to make a claim like this unless he states it as a hypothesis for a paper or study instead of polling his friends who are “avid readers” to which he defines. I think that if anything the internet as made us more well versed in our studies, more proficient learners and ultimately better thinkers. To say that the internet ensures that individuals no longer contemplate is a very bold statement, so in saying this I argue or examine the fact that since I am on Facebook, checking my email and listening to music while writing a paper I am no longer in deep thought on my paper that I am writing, I can no longer think critically or analytically. I do not agree with this, I think that the use of the internet and technology has made us more proficient and time effective as students.
ReplyDeleteI think that when looking at what Carr is claiming one can argue this for a variety of technological advancement in attempts for attention and to essentially hate advancement in technology or improvements on the human race, here I will give a few examples. If paper and pen were not invented then we would all be much better oral speakers and our culture would not write, but orally speak with each other binding us by these human connections, our communication would stem from the people in our immediate world. If automobiles had never been created, we would no longer be able to drive to school in Buffalo, but we would need to either take the steam engine or horse and carriage. If, if, if.... (Obviously arguments could be made on the flip side of these claims but I am stating these to prove my arguments) What I am trying to argue is that although technologies have changed the way we may act, they have not made us stupid, they have created a different form of learning, how can we define stupid as the lack of reading an entire article, could we not argue that reading a whole article for information that is not needed is stupid because of the time it takes to achieve the understanding that the article may have been useless. What Carr is claiming is that we as individuals have become changed for the worse, I say if we have intellectually changed, it is for the better. Society, technology and all entities of life will continue to evolve, the internet is another one of these progressions that have made life better for us as a human species.