Our Brains Could Be Taken Over!

      In the article by Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” was about what the internet is doing to our minds, and if it’s really helping us or if it is just giving us artificial intelligence.  The very first point the article gets into is how the internet is making it harder for your mind to get into long texts, or long books.  The article was saying that we lose interest and get bored after reading 3 or so pages of a book.  Our minds have gotten so accustomed to short to the point texts, and our minds lose interest after reading too long.  So I started thinking about this and I thought, if we are given the option to go read 4 huge books to finish your history research, or get online to quick search exactly what you need, what do you think you’re going to do?  Of course you’re just going to get online and search what you need.  Some people are saying that making things so quick and easy now, is altering our minds, and making them unable to focus and comprehend text for long periods of time. I personally think that search engines make our life a lot easier, because without them, we would get so much less done.  For example in an earlier video “A Vision of Students Today” by Michael Wesch, one of the girls in the video made a very true point.  She said that we all have to be multitaskers, if we weren’t we couldn’t get half the things we have to do, done.  Another girl said we have 24 hours in a day and there is more than 26.5 hours a day worth of stuff to be done.  So in my opinion I think search engines are one of the best things created, they help us get done the things we need done. 

            Later in the article it talks about Google creating artificial intelligence, and I don’t really agree with that.  Firstly, I don’t believe there is such a thing, because someone has to know what they’re talking about to put it online.  If nobody knew what something was, it wouldn’t be on the internet, so I think it is impossible for a computer to be smarter than human brains, everything online comes from human brains.  The other people that didn’t know, now are learning the exact same facts the first person knew, just through the internet, learning was made easier and makes the use of time more efficient.  Without it everyone would reading a 400 page books, to learn the exact same thing.  Now thanks to the internet, and the person that read the book it is just shortened down to save time and keep us interested in it, and we learn the exact same things. Secondly, I don’t think I could ever sit down and read 100 pages of a book in one sitting, and actually comprehend what I was reading even if internet wasn’t created, I don’t think internet is really affecting that, that’s just how my own, individual brain works.

            Although I disagree with some things in the article I did find some things to be interesting and true.  For example in the article Carr talked about how everything revolves around the internet.  We read on the internet, we listen to music, we watch T.V, we play games, we talk to friends, and share pictures.  Our lives are in these little machines.  Without my computer I couldn’t get half of my homework done, including this blog.  The internet really is almost everything that we need.  I also found it really interesting how real T.V and newspapers are almost like competing against the internet.  They use little blurbs and pop-ups to put little pieces of information out, and grab our attention, so we stay interested in it, just like the internet.  In conclusion, I thought this article was really interesting, and there are things I agree with like the fact our lives are in the computer, and I also disagreed with something’s like creating artificial intelligence.