Carr,
Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic, August 2008.
In Nicholas Carr's article, "Is
Google Making Us Stupid?” he starts off talking about how he feels as if over
the years his mind and ways of thinking have continually been changing and ends
up correlating this change to being online more and more. After analyzing the
situation, he came to the conclusion that with this increased introduction to
fast and easy information, our minds have become used to processing information
in a similar way, "chipping away" at our ability to concentrate and
contemplate. Our brains as well as traditional forms of technology have
to adapt to the new lifestyle centered on speed and efficiency. With the
example of Google and direct quotes of their goals to create an artificial
intelligence and become the perfect search engine and their “easy assumption that
we’d all “be better off” if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by
an artificial intelligence”, it is clear that
technology is not only making us stupid, but is increasingly becoming more and
more artificially intelligent.
With
personal experience in the area of not being able to focus on long articles or
books, numerous outside sources and an entirely too relatable topic, Nicholas
Carr’s article is an interesting and seemingly credible source for the Cycle #1
Project. Aside from ironically writing a lengthy ONLINE article that he expects
his audience to be able to focus on fully, he presents a good argument that
with quick and efficient searching and surfing through technology, adaptations
to other forms of technology and even to our brains have been made throughout
the last decade or so. There are links to some of the references he made and
the article overall seems professional and well thought out.
McIntosh,
Ewan. “Blogging Improves Young People’s
Confidence in Their Writing and Reading.” Edu.blog.com. December 19, 2009.
http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2009/12/blogging-improves-young-peoples-confidence-writing-reading.html
Ewan McIntosh’s blog post ironically called “Blogging
Improves Young People’s Confidence in Their Writing and Reading” presents the
argument that kids who are reading and writing frequently are often more
confident in their own reading and writing. McIntosh credits technological
actions such as texting, instant messaging and blogging for this confidence.
This article as a source is good but not the absolute best.
He does gain credibility with presenting slight counter arguments but the
sources and research is not top notch. At one part of the article, he explains
how blogging can help, but then we come to find out it will in a foreign language,
which does not apply, to a majority of people.
I think that you are making some good points with the "google making us stupid" article in that he is writing a long article. That was clever. I think that the science background behind the brain being affected is interesting. As with the second one, I do think that writing might boost their confidence, but the amount of writing doesn't mean that it is good writing. I think you can use these sources in an interesting way in your paper.
ReplyDeleteThe first source sounds like a great tool to present ethos with. The fact that he provides links to his sources creates a greater credibility. I also agree that technology isn't taking away our knowledge, but instead providing us with little bits of information as opposed to having to search through giant chunks of information, kind of letting us off the hook when we need to actually sort through large bits of info. The second one could be used also, but i think the first applies more, as you basically already implied.
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