Journal Nine

I feel very indecisive when it comes to this topic. In many ways I think the internet is very helpful to people. I think it even makes us smart or at least more "in-touch" and aware. Being able to access definitions, news articles, facts, statistics, images and all other forms of information is useful to everyone and can help strengthen any argument or idea. However, I also believe that the internet is changing the human species. Although I don't see at as a completely negative thing as many other people have said, I do see it as a tool that is shortening our attention span and frankly making us more lazy. Being able to access so much information so easily is good in the sense that it's accessible and information but bad in the way that it isn't valued the way it should be. Overall, I'm glad we use the internet the way we do but I can't deny that I'm a little bit nervous for the future.

Journal 9

I find it ironic that here I am reading an article about people who say that the internet has made it hard for them to read more then a few paragraphs, and here I am struggling to stay focused and read this entire article. I do believe this article has made a very valid point. The faster we can get answers online the less patient we will be to find answers the long and hard ways. Why read a book to find an answer when you can type in a few words on google and get an answer in seconds. I do believe this is affecting the way we communicate. Google and cell phones are destroying this generations communication skills, or are they just changing them? Although I would rather be able to communicate well face to face then through cell phones or computers. I do not believe they have effected our generation as much as they will the next generation. Talking to people is very important, reading books is very important, and staring at a computer screen hurts my head. So therefore I do believe that google has made us stupid and it will continue to get worse in the future.

google and our brains

After doing my inquiry three research paper on a topic very similar to that of the article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" I've had a lot of time to think on the topic. I researched many people's points of views, and as most of them were expert opinions I had a hard time disregarding any of the ideas that they were saying. As I kept reading on the topic, I realized that everyone was mainly tuned into the fact that our thinking habits were simply changing. In my opinion I think our 'changing ways' is nothing to be fearful of. The internet has brought our society so far that there is no way we can be worried about becoming less intelligent. If it weren't for our new ways with internet I wouldn't be writing this right now! With that, I would have to disagree with the main point of the article - although I completely agree with many of his examples and observations.

Journal 9

I do not agree with this article that the Internet is making us stupid. If anything it is filling our minds with more knowledge than we have ever had before. Also the news and articles are getting out much faster then they used to so we have more up to date information then if we were to read a book or a newspaper article the next day. I do think when researching anything it is important to make sure that it is a credible source and that the information that you are reading is reliable. That is one drawback to having all this information on the Internet because you do not know if all of it is true or not. As far as researching students should continue to get information from sources other than the Internet because at times it may become a little to easy for the student to find the exact information they are looking for, but it is not from a credible source. When talking about interest in long papers I would tend to agree that I skim through the article at first sight every time before I read the full thing. I decide if it is worth reading in a matter or a few seconds rather then going ahead and reading the full article. In a way I think that Americans have become a little lazy when reading through full articles, but there is so much out there that if something is boring then we can find something else to read really fast. I do not feel like that is a bad thing, it is just a habit that is a result of all of this information.

Journal 9

I do agree with the statement that the internet is changing us, but I am not sold on if its for the better or worse. I will admit that after a few paragraphs I started to skim until I came to the sentence about individuals skimming articles and than I tried to read the rest of it without skimming and I found this a bit difficult to do. I do think that the internet is a great invention, and I sort of agree that the way we think and read is changing. I do not if thats from google or just because times are changing, the world and technology are always going to be constantly changing, so we will be too. We change and adapt to the technology that changes and adapts. I think google, or the internet can benefit and harm us. It benefits us because research that used to take hours to conduct, now takes seconds on the internet, but on the flip side it does make it harder to listen to a long lecture or simply wait in line, or read a lengthy article because we are so used to get our answer, now. We do not want to wait for the point of a lecture, or the point of an article, we as readers want everything strait to the point. Everything needs to be straight to the point. So, I guess the question becomes if there are these "negative affects" from google or the internet what and how much are the effecting and does this outweigh the positives that the internet and google provides. I can not agree with him fully or disagree with him fully because I see both sides of the argument.

what is happening to my brain

I tend to agree with Mr. Carr when he relays his frustrations of being unable to focus on a something for an extended amount of time and looking for something else to do. Although I think we can all agree that the Internet is a miraculous invention and makes research and knowledge much more accessible, it also has its downside. I don't think using this medium is making us dumb, but I do believe that it is changing the way we think which isn't necessarily to our advantage. We skim through articles that catch our interest and when we get the gist we move on to another web page and do the same. When it comes to reading assignments such as novels, short stories, or analytical texts we often realize that we can't apply the same method, and get bored with focusing in on the text for crucial details. This doesn't make us less smart, just less disciplined.

Journal 9

I agree, I don't think that the internet is making anyone dumber. As for writing, I think the internet is a very useful tool. Like it mentioned in the article, you can find information instantaneously rather than it taking days to sort through books and other information. For example, if you're writing a research paper, the internet has made it much easier to find the facts and information you need to write it. As far as your attention span goes, the internet also provides a lot of websites to distract you from doing homework or other things, but I don't think you can prove that people that are on the internet often have a smaller attention span. Overall, I think the internet has benefited humans much more than it has harmed us.