Sherry Turkle: Connected, but alone?

“As we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.” Nicholas Carr

Have you ever looked into the past and see how you used to read and study years ago, and how you do it now? Has there been any changes? What if I tell you that is not the way that you study or read that has changed but actually the way you think? That is just how Nicholas Carr explains it in his essay called “Is Google making us stupid?”  Carr claims that, while new technologies are an efficient way of learning and communicating, they also are causing us to lose something even more important: Our ability to focus and think deeply, especially when it comes to reading.  Carr supports his ideas by pointing out other writers who feel the same thing is happening. For example Carr quotes blogger Scot Karp who questions that these changes may not just impact his reading, but also his thinking. Carr doesn’t only rely on anecdotal evidence, but he also cites several recent studies indicating that something is changing in the way people think that correlates to their dependence on computers for sharing, reading, and researching. The results indicate that “deep” reading and thinking is being replaced by a kind of “skimming.” Carr continues by pointing how adaptable the human brain is and suggests that our minds may be changing in response to our new lives online. Carr points to early efficiency studies by Frederick Winslow Taylor, who took a stopwatch into early factories, and says this approach to manufacturing has now begun to influence human thought; the Internet encourages efficient, speedy exchange of knowledge, but not deep, careful consideration of ideas. In the end, Carr says he may be proven wrong in time and says that many new technologies, even the invention of writing itself, are misjudged by people in the beginning who can’t see the long term benefits. Nonetheless, Carr maintains that something in his ways of thinking and reading is different now. 

                I personally agree to what Carr states in his essay, I remember that when I was growing up I used to read for hours; then with the pass of the time it became boring, because there was something more important to do than reading and that was “Exploring the internet.” I have to admit that at that time all things that I could do were amazing, but now I am starting to see how it could affect me and everyone else. We need to be able to understand that the person that created the internet was creating his/her own business, they didn’t think on how well we were going to do with or without the benefits of social media. I want people to be able to understand the pros and cons of the internet, I want them to be aware of what that could cause then, I want people out there to know how addictive it can get. It is not a game, neither a joke. If we continue to lose our abilities to think deeply and reason we will be depending on machines for the rest of our lives.

Those who neglect to see reality will be the ones more likely close to failure.

What are the costs  we are willing to pay from our compulsive internet use? Is the internet becoming an addictive source? Will we choose to stop using it, or moderate the use we give it a day for a change?  Often we find ourselves using the internet for no reasons; either just because we are bored, or maybe because we think we have nothing more important to do.  The truth is that with the pass of time society has become addicted to the use of social media due to the lack of security, acceptance, and knowledge. Moreover, they think that they get more attention from others via internet, and some other people are also more likely to make or obtain friends and attention faster than they will ever do in real life. By this I am not stating that everyone is like that. Others rely on social media to obtain information faster than what they will ever do sitting in a library, but is that really helping us? Who are we really helping here? Now a day’s Google has become our loyal friend we use internet to get around, socialize, make purchases, study, and see friends, pay bills, library online, music, maps, help guides among others… We might think that we are saving time by searching and obtaining information in seconds. The truth is that we are relying on resources like those to make our lives easier without thinking on what we will become, and how it will affect us in a future without technology.