This past summer, I noticed something drastically different about myself. Typically in my free time off from school and in my few breaks from working, I found myself reading for pleasure numerous books, one after the other. I remember two summers ago, when I went on a family vacation to the Bahamas, I must have read 3 full books in the week that I was gone, never mind what I read before I went and after I got back. From this May to September, however, I literally don’t think I was actually able to complete one book whether I was reading in my bed or reading when it was slow at work. I realized that no matter how hard I tried or how intriguing the book was, I couldn’t concentrate on it long enough to make any significant progress. I found myself spacing out, itching to multi-task like I had been used to doing while reading for school (oops, sorry!), and paying little attention to what I was reading in the book. Because I worked a lot this summer between babysitting, tutoring, serving Italian ices (so cool, right?), and filing papers at my aunt’s office, I just attributed my inability to read and concentrate to extreme exhaustion. Little did I know that I would find a much better explanation for my struggle to devote any substantial amount of time to reading books like I used to.
When I first read the title of Nicholas Carr’s article for this week, I thought in my head, “of course Google isn’t making us stupid, it provides us with so much information!” As I kept reading, though, I found that I had a lot more in common with the author than I thought I would. For example, “my concentration often starts to drift after 2 or 3 pages, I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.” Could he describe me any more perfectly? Some people don’t understand how I get any work done in my room (I am NOT a library girl), but I wonder how anyone gets anything done otherwise. I sit in my bed, distracted by my computer, music, my friends coming in and out, while surprisingly never really losing focus. I actually love to multitask. It’s hard for me to sit here working on only one thing, which explains why I’m listening to music, talking to my friend on Facebook chat, and thinking about a lesson plan I have to write up, all at the same time that I’m writing this blog post. Is that bad?
As an aspiring teacher with a minor in special education, I have had many conversations before about the seemingly increased prevalence of ADD and ADHD in children these days, and I have on many occasions traced it back to technology being a possible cause of this. While I have no idea if this is a viable theory, I have started to think that children spend a lot of time navigating computer games, playing on multiple video game consoles, and flipping from show to show recorded on TiVo, so they must feel so overwhelmed with everything that is at their fingertips. They may be so over-stimulated by all that is available that it is hard for them to concentrate on one thing for too long. Even though I have thought about this so frequently, I didn’t really consider the negative aspects of technology for older people until I read this article. I think the author makes a great point when he says that the net “puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else,” because the internet provides so many ways to access synopses of information that we desire. I had never considered that we would begin to take on the qualities of the web, or what the article refers to as our “intellectual technology,” but it seems like there is evidence supporting that claim. One question I have, though, is whether or not this is something that develops relatively quickly. As I mentioned in my anecdote in the beginning, I noticed a change within a year, so I am skeptical about blaming it on changes brought about by my use if the internet. I wouldn’t consider myself to have been an avid internet user, besides communicating with friends, until the last year or so when I started using my computer more for school (particularly Professor Kane’s classes ;-)) and for following the news since I never watch TV while I’m here. Is it possible that my expectations for reading and obtaining information could have changed that quickly?
While I would agree that a growing dependence on the internet as our preferred source of information has possibly altered the way people think and read, I am reluctant to believe that human beings are starting to become so machine-like that we are beginning to resemble computers themselves. I still acknowledge the fact that we are a privileged species in that we have the opportunity for such deep communication and meaningful relationships, which is something we certainly couldn’t have if we were turning into machines. Therefore, I disagree with Google’s assertion that we’d all “be better off” if we “had all the world’s information directly attached to [our] brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than [our] brain.” As the author notes, Google’s nonchalant mention of artificial intelligence really is unsettling. I think there are interactions and abilities inherent in human beings that are just as important as intelligence, so the thought of humans becoming artificial is hard for me to grasp. If anything, I would argue that our reliance on computers to “mediate our understanding of the world” will make us superficially intelligent rather than artificially intelligent. I think of it in the same way I think about a lot of students and reading books these days—opting for the Sparknotes version of the information that offers all of the main ideas without as much supporting detail. It doesn’t mean they don’t know what happened in the book, it just means that they only know it on a surface level rather than an in depth level.
What do you think? Have you noticed any changes in your own reading and concentrating abilities? Do you think we are at risk of becoming artificially intelligent? Or do you completely disagree with the author’s argument altogether—is Google / the web not doing this to us?!
Hey Jess - While I can still lose myself in a book (and plan to do so in T minus 2 weeks!), I definitely agree that our patterns have changed because of the internet. Even reading this article I was skimming, scrolling down, checking how long the article was, back up to where I wa...ooh an email! Reply to the email, better check facebook, no changes, ok back to where i was, what was this article about anyway??
ReplyDeleteIt really was like that, and I think that's a product of how quickly we are required to scan through massive amounts of data - let's be honest, if we read everything Google threw at us, we'd be stuck on one project for years. So we're now trained to "pulse" and "scan" and be searching simultaneously through multiple sites.
So maybe its a matter of slooooowing down. Put the computer away, shut the outside world out, and pick up that book!! But I don't think it makes us stupid. ;)
I actually had a conversation about this idea over dinner this weekend with my friend's family in New York. We were debating whether the internet is making is smarter, or more stupid. Here is what we came up with:
ReplyDeleteThe internet makes us smarter in the sense that we can do more than we could have dreamed possible twenty years ago. With access to so much information instantly, we can get tasks done infinitely faster than we could before the internet came around.
The things that I argue we are getting dumber in is just general "street smarts." For example, I can't imagine having to navigate my way anywhere without a GPS. I don't even remember how I used to get places before google maps was available. I also think technology may be hindering our social skills because we're not required to have face to face interactions as frequently as we used to.
So, that's my two cents. Great post.