The New Mechanism for obtaining information is altering the thinking process

There is a radical transformation in how society searches for information. In Carr’s article, Is Google Making us Stupid? Carr discusses the negative impacts of Internet use and the way that we obtain and process information. Carr was the former editor of the Harvard Business Review, he has written for the Atlantic, the Wall street Journal, the New York Times, MIT Technology review, and several periodicals. In 2010, Carr’s book The Shallow; what the internet is doing to our brains was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

As a writer he focuses on technology and economics, emphasizing thoughts and perception, and pointing out the personal and social consequences of dependency on technology. The internet supplies information in a way that Nicholas Carr writes is efficient and immediate above all else. As we continue to use the internet, we continue to adapt ourselves to a method of thinking that puts an emphasis on the result rather than the process. This comes to a point where even our knowledge will become entirely stored in the external hard drive of the internet, rather than within our own minds.

Carr poses that “Google is used as a metonymy for modern technological advancement and includes smart devices. another school of thought also consider Google to be the “the ultimate apparatus for development of new ubiquitous data collection (286 Barenboim), in the sense it is the “new horizons that increase research trends… improves our ability to collect contextual information that can be analyzed and presented.” (Barenboim)

This essay is not trying to “succumb to nostalgia for the way things are” (61 Twenge ) rather it is to understand the way things are and how that is transforming mental capabilities.

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This Googling obsession will bring about a notion that does not force us to encode information internally. However, what is not taken into consideration is the fact that the information is being produced yet there is no subjective interpretation, therefore there is no knowledge gain. According to an article written by the Taylor and Francis Group in 2016, “the ease of access to these vast resources available online is affecting our thought processes for problem-solving, recall and learning.” (How)

According to historical trends and data, there is evidence that suggests that “we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies” that we use (Carr 4) . This can be seen in how the introduction of the clock created an “abstract framework of divided time” which “became a point of reference for both actions and thought” (Carr 4). Likewise, the internet does not merely “supply [us] the stuff of thought, but [it] …also shapes the process of thought,” (Carr 2). In prioritizing quick answers, we begin to stray away from concentration, contemplation, and deep thoughts. In other words, we are no longer “scuba diver[s] in [a]… sea of words”, but rather “like a guy on a Jet Ski” who “zip[s] along the surface” ( Carr 2).

We can’t really read or even skim through a book to distilled facts, but why should we when we have a concise encyclopedia full of summaries of almost if not all topics possible with just one click from a mouse or smartphone. It has become worst to the point that “Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connection that forms when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.” (3 Carr) A question that society should be concerned about is what exactly we are giving up for speed and efficiency. we are inclined to neglect contemplation where most of our best ideas come from, for computational power, and as we continue to do so, we persistently “drain our inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance…”(7 Carr).

The term “stupid” refers to the diminishment of critical thinking and cognitive abilities due to an overreliance on the artificial knowledge provided by technology. Carr’s implied question does not indicate that people are stupid, or even gave out indicators that people are becoming stupider. People are not stupid, the issue is that our priorities are distinct, which is consequently producing shallow thoughts.

We are of the opinion that deep thought is not a necessity, since we can engage in web surfing to collect chunks of info. It is pertinent to note that our inferences, analogies, help foster the ideas which we used to develop society. Nonetheless, if “Computers think for us, hereby flattening our intelligence,” (Darlin) and become an integral component of not just our lives but significantly impacting society, then there is a risk of becoming more reliant on it for our daily lives. As this reliance continues to expand, we begin to become fewer active participants in the physical world and more like inhabitants of the digital one.

Even though Carr’s article was published in 2008, recent advances in technology continue to support his claim that there is a trend for humanity, as a species, to seek out convenience and shortcuts. Some examples of this include self-driving cars, fingerprints activated lock screens, and predictive text. Our reliance on technology is ever-growing. As of 2017, approximately 4,464,000,000 Google searches are made a day (Google). Carr expresses fears that we are continually “spread wide and thin” by our connection to a “vast network of information,” we run the metaphorical risk of becoming “pancake people,” in the sense that as “we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world…our own intelligence [will] flattens into artificial intelligence” (Carr 7).

The Internet does provide us with the “advantage of having immediate access to… an incredibly rich store of information” (Carr 2). However, although we are supplied with this information, intelligence and cognition are characterized by how we process, retain, and apply this knowledge. “Many of those who live digitally are primarily skilled at processing data within short term memory.” (Badke)

The problem with this sought of skill is that we tend not to be actively involved in the process, instead, we passively scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration to numerous materials. For instance “when you play a fast-moving shooter game, your memory of each enemy will be limited. You may not remember any enemy specifically, because your task is to deal with and dispose of each one fast as you can. You have no need to put anything into deep memory.” By all indications, this evidently shows how the brain of automated folks “facilitates the processing of lots of data quickly to eliminate what isn’t required or to synthesize what is needed, rather than storing data in deep memory.” (Badke)

In a nutshell, there is a tendency for google to produce growth, for example, “the tedious job of filing a tax return no longer requires several evenings, but just a few hours. This leaves us spending time for more productive activities” (Darlin). Also, it has “liberated us from the time-wasting activities associated with finding information.” (Darlin) However, there is also a countertendency for us to expect the worst outcomes with all these presumable benefits. “Google encourages our minds to flit from thing to thing rather than concentrating on following a substantial information or argument.” (Badke) What we do not understand is during the process of finding shorts cut is when we lose ourselves.

Work Cited

1. Afroz, Nishat. “Internet Addiction and Subjective Well-Being of University Students.” Indian Journal of Health & Wellbeing, vol. 7, no. 8, Aug. 2016, pp. 787–794. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=117944379&site=ehost-live.
2. Badke, William. “How Stupid Is Google Making Us?” Online, vol. 34, no. 6, Nov. 2010, pp. 51– 53.EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=55071901&site=ehost- live.
3. Birenboim, Amit, and Noam Shoval. “Mobility Research in the Age of the Smartphone.” Annals of the American Association of Geographers, vol. 106, no. 2, Mar. 2016, pp. 283– 291. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00045608.2015.1100058.
4. Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid? (Cover Story).” Atlantic, vol. 302, no. 1, July 2008, pp. 56– 63. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=32562106&site=ehost-live.
5. Darlin, Damon. ‘Technology Doesn’t Dumb Us Down. It Frees Our Minds.’ New York Times 21Sept.2008, p. 4(L). Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A185353968/AONE?u=upitt_main&sid=AONE&xid =707aa016. Accessed 12 Jan. 2019.
6. Evans-Cowley, Jennifer, and Justin Hollander. “The New Generation of Public Participation: Internet-Based Participation Tools.” Planning Practice & Research, vol. 25, no. 3, June 2010, pp. 397–408. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/02697459.2010.503432.
7. “Google Search Statistics.” Google Search Statistics – Internet Live Stats, www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/.
8. “How the Internet Is Increasingly Taking Over Human Memory.” PDResources, Taylor and Francis Group, 22 Aug. 2016, www.pdresources.org/blog_data/how-the-internet-is- increasingly- taking-over- human-memory/#.WbEq7PcpDgA.
9. Twenge, Jean M. “Has the Smartphone Destroyed a Generation?” Atlantic, vol. 320, no. 2, Sept. 2017, pp.58–65.EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=124311558&site=ehost-live.