Is Google Making Us Stupid?
This article is very interesting and made me think. It shows how Google affects people’s brains. Nicholas Carr says: ‘’Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory.’’ He says that his concentration has changed a lot; it often drifts after reading two or three pages. He feels like he drags himself back to the reading. Carr used to read many pages for hours, now the deep reading that used to come naturally is a struggle. He says that this is because of the Internet. The more he uses the Internet the more he has to stay focused on the reading.
It is stated in the article that the Net is becoming a universal medium. Media supply the stuff of thought, and they also shape the process of thought. The Net seems to chip away our capacity for concentration and contemplation. ‘’The more people use the Web the more they have to stay focused on the piece. Many people have a problem with reading books nowadays. Even articles online bring them trouble. They just skim through them. There was even a research conducted in theUK, and researchers proved that many people ‘’exhibited a form of skimming activity.’’ They would hop from one source to another on the internet and they only read one or two pages of an article or a book, rarely returning to the same source. Research showed that some of these people saved these readings but they don’t have a proof that these people finished reading them. This raises a question,
Did these people read only one or two pages and stopped because they were distracted by other Web pages or because they found the reading not interesting?
I sometimes find myself not concentrating on a reading but most of the time, I think it’s because the subject of the article is not interesting. When I was reading a book this past summer, I was able to concentrate and read many pages without taking breaks. That book was very interesting.
It is also mentioned in the article that the Internet includes other intellectual technologies. We use it as a map, clock, printing press, typewriter, calculator, telephone, radio and TV. It is amazing how our technology is advanced nowadays. Having all these things on the internet may be often helpful. For example when we get lost, we can just use the internet on our phones and Google directions. On the other hand, it can stop many people from buying these listed above electronics and companies which make them will lose some money.
The founders of Google want to build artificial intelligence that would solve problems that have never been solved before. It’s kind of a cool concept; it’s like creating a stew of all the knowledge in the world in one pot. Think about it, we’ve had so many brilliant minds throughout the centuries, Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton, and Thomas Edison; individually they solved some difficult problems and brought some pretty amazing inventions into our everyday lives. But just imagine if the intelligence of all these people were combined…it might create inventions/solutions that were never considered or thought of before. I wouldn’t necessarily agree that we would be “better off” if we all had the world’s information attached to our brains or even replaced by a smarter brain because sometimes ignorance is bliss. Not all of us are meant to know or have access to all the worlds’ secrets, it would cause some of us to overload so to speak. Plus, I fear it would take away the magic and mystery of the unknown. So to apply this type of technology for researching cures to diseases and the safety of buildings and cars for example, I think it would be beneficial. Otherwise, read a book, take a walk, look up at the clouds or the stars in the sky and think, wonder, or investigate things on your own. You might find what you’re looking for, you might not, either way this world is too small for a bunch of know it alls.
Chapter 2 ‘’Concept’’ introduces the historical and conceptual foundations of grid design. Grid adds order, continuity and harmony to the presentation of information. It allows an audience to predict where to find information. Grid makes easier to add a new content to a presentation. ‘’The grid has long been an invaluable tool for creating order out of chaos for designers of all kinds-from city planners to architects to typesetters and graphic artists. In recent years, web designers, too have come to discover the remarkable power that grid-based design can afford in creating intuitive, immersive, and beautiful user experiences.’’
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