Dudoit, Zach

4/29/2011

In our current world people are constantly evolving. People are always looking for the quicker way to do things and yet make it more efficient. When the internet came out t was a unlimited source of information but now it has altered ways and minds of people who use it. When we as readers get on the internet we are searching pages for ideas, main points, pictures, list, etc., just to locate the answer as fast possible. If nothing seems right or catches our attention we simply move on never to return. Online readers need to be drawn in to an intriguing article and be able to read it quickly. As said by Michael agger in an online article , “Lazy Eyes,”for writers to truly get our attention they need to instead of writing the traditional way they to change there style depending on the audience of the article.

I feel that readers are definitely changing their styles when they read on line oppose to reading on paper. We tend to skim whole pages online, jump from hyperlink to hyperlink, never fully understanding the material we raed about. In his recent works Nicholas carr the author of “is Google making us stupid”, argues that the internet is changing us and not allowing for a deep thought set in hindering us from truly knowing the material. But this is a new world and theirs new ways of learning. Carrs from a different era, we don’t want to have to read long text, boring subjects that take forever to work on, we want it right now.i want the right answer and I don’t want to spend hours looking for it. Although reading on line doesn’t allow for great comprehension of the topic or further understaning , it does broden our knowledge about many different things, allows us to adapt faster and evolve.

As we read on the internet we are constantly interrupted by other things we would rather be doing. Its just an unlimited source of whatever you want so thereis just too many distraction to compete with. So there’s more motivation to zip through the reading. Michael agger in his online article “Lazy Eyes”, he feels that the world is changing and as a writer he needs to be able to keep up. The reader is more comfortable reading a certain way on the net and so the writer needs to be able to write in the way that’s interesting to the reader. I feel that he is correct, ones writing should appeal to the audience or reader be able to understand what they are trying to say without forcing yourself to read it, in other words it should just flow. “ if you don’t see what you need, youre gone. And its not you who has to change, its me the writer.” States Agger. Because reading on the internet is such a new experience people are still trying to find the best way to read on it and find info. Michael agger is saying that all the writer needs to is change the traditional way of writing and adapt to the nw way people take in info. He states writers should instead write inb bulleted list, sentence fragments, usage of bolds to keep us honest, eciting subheads, and no puns. This will pull the reader in and keep them interested even when theres always something popping up. Reading on the can be perfected if the writers commodate the readers style of learning.

In conclusion, we are forever shaping our minds and learning new things to go about our business. Humans are always looking for new efficient ways to live. Nicholas Carr fails to recognize the potential of the new world, and how we read and gain knowledge. He feels that its going to ultimately change the way we go about everything, hes right but he is afraid of it. in “is google making us stupid?” by Carr , they stated Socrates from Platos Phaedrus, had feared that the written word would make people forgetful because they write things down instead of excercising their memory. This is carr today afraid to embrace the new technology. Michal Agger on the other hand has a modern perspective on the world and can help himself by allowing this new way to influence his writhing to take him to new heights and allows him to evolve with the times.

Quote sandwich

Fear holds us back from learning.
Society focuses too much on tight answers and already knowing.

While encouraging the "enternal student" in each of us Wurman has succeeded in letting us know that we deserve and are worthy of gaining the knowledge we seek, no matter how much we dont know about it. George Edwards in my English 100 class sums it up perfectly by stating "My own serching has led me into realms unreachable in any other manner." To continue learning new things and having no fear about it shows a tenacity that sadly seems to be lacking in todays society, by reason of fear. George's statment give me hope that people will strive to continue looking for new ways to educate themselves. As long as the interest is there we have out stepping stone to understanding.

"The inquisitiveness essential to learning thrives on transcending this fear." As quoted by author Richard Saul Wurman in his essay "The Bussiness of Understanding". In his essay Wurman holds no bar. He clearly states his opinion that ignorance is not bliss.

quotation sandwiches

Zach Dudoit jr.

Eng.100

Quotation Sandwiches

April 25, 2011

In today’s world, people are becoming impatient and don’t want to deal with the same things they used to be okay with. I think that is because all the new technologies that we have today allow us to get to the point quicker and get our task done in a more efficient manner. Because technology is evolving people are too evolving. Kevin, a student at Whatcom community college, says, “As I walk the earth, I find that people are always trying to find new ways to get things done quicker and more efficient.” So as we grow we learn things, things that help us discover or create new way to evolve, find a more efficient way to live.

On the internet, readers tend to do things and research in a certain way. They access sites quickly, they skim pages, and if they don’t find what they want they move on. Clicking on hyperlinks and websites searching something that makes since to them. On his online article, “Lazy Eyes”, Michael Agger describes this kind of people as “informavores”, they access sites quickly searching for information scents and moving on if there’s no food. Agger argues that online readers are doing things differently,these days people jump on the internet and just jump from hyperlink to hyperlink skimming the page looking for the main point. He goes on to say that someone needs to change and it’s not the reader but instead the writer, they need to capture our attention and hold it. There are too many distractions on the net for people today information needs to be able to compete.

Quotation Sandwiches

In his article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid," Carr complains, "Someone or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory." Basically, Carr believes that deep thinking and deep reading have become a struggle to many of us since the Net surfing and Web browsing indirectly promote a different habit in people. we depend on the technology so much in this modern century. As we surf on the net for something, we often find ourselves end up at a sit we never intended to be at the first place. That's because Google assumes or suggests what we meant to say; as a result, we allow it to lead us to its suggestions. It's like going grocery shopping. We always buy more than we have planned to because of the variety choices and offers.

As in Carr's view, "Net seems to be doing is chipping away [our] capacity for concentration and contemplation." Internet contains enormously valuable information which are supposed to increase productivities if we utilize it well. When we start to make decision with the tools we got instead of the senses we have, we will run into a totally different problem. For example, over the weekend, there was hours long traffic jam on the freeway simply because most drivers were using the "smart GPS" for road guidance to get to the Tulip Festival. With almost all the tourists on the same route guided by the GPS to the tulip fields, the price we have to pay was spending more time in the traffic.

quote practice

Heather Williamson


Nicholas Carr, author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” strongly feels like media, search engines, and technology in general is changing society and the way that people act and think. I believe that Carr and his colleagues are being over dramatic with their stance on media. Carr addresses skeptical readers like myself when he says, “Perhaps those who dismiss critics of the internet as Luddites or nostalgists will be proved correct, and from our hyperactive, data-stoked minds will spring a golden age of intellectual discovery and universal wisdom”. I am one of those skeptics that Carr is talking about here. I feel that Carr is correct that a golden age of discovery and wisdom will be the result of our media filled lives.

quote sandwich

As our technology grows we tend to skim over the text instead of fully reading the text. Michael Agger states, “Humans are infromavores. On the internet, we hunt for facts.” In other words we quickly skim over the text looking for important words or concepts. Thus people that write online are going to have to change the way they write because if it seems to long people are going to leave the site and move to another.

Quotations Post

According to WCC student Luis C. “We have lost desire for reading something else other than the information we are looking for.” And student Kevin Joseph “As I continue to walk the earth I find that people are always trying to find ways to get things done quicker and more efficient.” In making these comments they both have similar points. The quotes both tie into what each other are saying. There is no real thought behind it, it’s almost programmed. We all go online, get what we need and leave without actually absorbing the information. The general idea like Carr mentions in his “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” “It’s a different kind of reading, behind it lies a different kind of thinking.”

Richard Wurman states, "I'm a success when I do something I can truly understand" in his article The Business of Understanding. It's true. When we do something that we understand completely it is one of the most accomplished feelings we can experience. When we do things that we only partially understand It's kind of like walking on a foggy trail on a moonlit night, we can see the general direction of where we are going and where we need to be, we can get there, but we're going to stumble a little on the way. Truly understanding on the other hand is more like walking to one side of a well lit room to the other, easy. He goes on to say, "-you must go through certain processes and meet certain conditions before understanding can take place." Understanding isn't an instantaneousness thing for most people. They have to figure out some way to lighten the sky and clear the fog in my metaphorical situation to understand something. It helps if you like the topic you are trying to understand, that's one way to clear away fog. Finding a good source of information is especially important or else the trail will just get harder and harder to follow until your completely lost or on a whole new trail altogether.

Quotation Sandwhich

According to Nicholas Carr, “we are how we read.” He is saying that the way we nowadays interpret and take information from the net is a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking. Carr worries that the style of reading from the net is weakening our capacity for our deep reading skills, being a distraction and that it affects our attention.  Our ability to read long articles is no more there because internet has made our reading skills more efficient. When we go online searching for information we need, we go straight to what we are looking for. Power browsing and skipping from link to link only distracting us from the rest of the information that is there. But we have to see it from many point of views, and you will figure that the internet is not all that bad; it only depends on how you see it. The way you use this instrument, like Carr would say, how much you use it, and the way you control it only depends on you.

In his article, The Business of Understanding. Richard Wurman says, “It also wasn’t popular to understand that nature of failure. It was popular to try to replicate success.” The author through this passage explains how it was not good to try to understand or ask questions about something you did not know of. Instead, it was better to show that you knew everything even though you didn’t, trying to understand was not popular, and you were better treated when you did not show ignorance. To grow in knowledge we all have to ask, admitting ignorance can be difficult sometimes, but it’s the only way to learn. Like Wurman would say, “when you admit ignorance, the more you will increase your ability to understand and learn.”

Quotation Sandwhich

In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr states, “Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after.” And further on, Carr says, “What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.” What Carr is explaining, is that technology has altered the way we receive and process information. The Web, which is the most popular source for people today, acts as an “artificial brain” and does all the work for us and when we find that one bit of information we need, we move on to the next thing. The Net breaks down information so it is easier and less time consuming for us to acquire. Convenience and immediacy is what we have learned to look for. The more we use the internet, the harder time we have acquiring information and remembering it. Also, we cannot concentrate on long or complex reading for a long time because we are so used to the less time consuming and less perplex style of reading. Now that we have somebody else learning the information and providing it for us on the Internet, we’ve almost lost the capability to study for ourselves, and really learn.

Quote Sandwich

Before when information had to be studied students might find themselves buried in the stacks carefully pouring over large and unwieldy volumes.  As technology advanced, along with the way people took in information, society has become more dependent on easy, simple, quick answers.  With constantly wandering attention and distractions beating you from all sides the idea of becoming engrossed in something seems almost laughable.  Supporting Michael Agger's idea in his essay titled Lazy Eyes; that it’s not the reader who must change, but the author, WCC student Adam D. suggests that, “If they cannot find the answers within four or five mouse clicks, they will give up and say, “I guess I’ll never know.”  Today with the advances made, we find ourselves skimming and skipping from one bit of information to the next.  Moving with his theory that the author must change to suit the changing way people concentrate Agger claims, "The environment works against you.  Read a nice sentence, get dinged by IM, never return to the story again."  With our skipping natures we sabotage any potential learning we might gain otherwise.  With this mentality it's not toward a more informed society we advance, but toward a degeneration in societal reading and development standards.

starting quotations

According to Nicholas Carr, “But it’s a differendt kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking-perhaps even a new sense of the self.” This says to me how people today communicate with one another. How even in reading, people have changed themselves and how they address the world. People are afraid of communication on all levels, and yet communication is so important for our survival.
Saul Wurman sates, “When you can admit to ignorance, you will realize that if ignorance isn’t exactly bliss, it is an ideal state from which to learn.” When you can just go with truth, you allow yourself to grow. Just admitting that you may not have the answers is hard, but what a great place to start learning. I know that I still struggle with this issue, ignorance is such a frightening thing. If I can remind myself of the learning I am starving myself from, maybe I can grow in knowledge.

Quote Sandwich

According to WCC student Christian, “Unfortunately as old media circuits are making their less than graceful exits, new less informative relays are taking their place.” This goes to show that just because it is cheap and quick, that does not make it better. This furthers my point by showing that most of us are not alone in the thinking that everything is moving away from hard print and onto digital. We are all on a digital wave and just waiting for it to crash on the shore. This may be a soft landing as paper is totally phased out, or it could be a tidal wave that hurts us as the transition does not go as planned.

I believe google doesnt make us stupid or not stupid, I think it's more of a question of do we choice. Media is manipulating us into using electronic medium and directing us to see what they want us to see and hear what they want us to hear. This doesnt give us much room to form our own thoughts because is distracts us with links and advertising. According to Nicholas Carr in the artical is google making usw stupid he writes "what the net wseems to be doing is chipping aware my capacity for concentration and contimplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the net distributes it." the essence of Carrs argument is that google is directing our opinions. From my perspective its more than just google but instead its the media driving google. An example of the media brainwashing us is we could choose to go to a book and look up infornmation but we dont do that, instead we go to the internet. We tend to get sucked in to choosing the media through gossipand products.

Another topic I would have liked to write more about would be be from the artical lazy eyes where Michael Agger discusses how we can get distracted byludic reading or pleasure reading. In his Article agger maintains that, "Ludic reading can be achieved on the web, but the environment works against you. read a nice sentance, get dinged by IM, never return to the story agian." This allows us to get small details of topics we find interestin by IMing our friends and reading small snipets of what we see in entertaining news.

Quotations

Richard Wurman in The Business of Understanding reports “It wasn’t- and still isn’t- popular to ask questions rather than answer questions.” Saying that asking questions makes you look stupid, answering questions makes you look intelligent and successful. In order to gain popularity and respect society wants you to know facts and information on every subject, even if you don’t fully understand it. Google is supporting this idea, not requiring the you to start from the basics.

In his article Is Google Making Us Stupid? Nicholas Carr says, “The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive.” Referring in Google’s eyes our brain is the same as computers and if we could just connect a computer to our brain we would be smarter people. We are human, our brains are capable of much more than repeating data. Google is limited to operating and thinking like a computer, we are limitless and capable too much more greater learning. 

I'll have a quotation sandwich please

In his artice, " Is Google Making us Stupid?" the author Nicholas Carr writes, "Never has a communication system played so many roles in our lives-or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts-as the internet does today." What Carr is saying here is that we have slowly started to rely on the web for more and more things. The rate that this technology is growing is alarming, and we have let it become such a large part of our lives. The internet net as a whole is not a bad thing, it is how we use it, how we abuse it, and how it has taken control of our thought processes that is eye opening. Society has accepted and craved the internet like a kid and his presents on Christmas morning. The world wide web is not the devil step child, but letting it control lives like the way it does for some is just plain scary.


In his article, "Lazy Eyes" Michael Agger fills his on screen article with attention getting tactics to proove his point that, "Humans are informavores. On the internet, we hunt for facts. In earlier days, when switching between sites was time-consuming, we tended to stay in one place and dig. Now we assess a site quickly, look for an information scent then move on if nothing is there." What Agger is saying here is that we are changing the way we use computers and its resources. We used to spend time on the internet embracing it, when it was slow, new, and lacked depth. But now that there is infinate sites on one topic, we often surf the internet only staying connected with it long enough to see if it's what we're looking for. If we dont find it: double click and we move on. The internet has been a useful tool and an amazing display of how technology can grow and how fast we can adapt to it. The tendencies that have been born with more information and faster web speed are not the greatest habits to own. The internet used responsibly can be a useful tool, but we all know how hard it is to stay focused and connected to one thing at a time. Is this the internet's fault? Or is it just a problem we have created for ourselves as we are introduced to new technologies and new ways to learn and take in information.

google=stupid?

In the artical Is google making us stupid? Nicholas Carr asks if the internet is making us lazy because technology is making it easier to find the information that we need. Carr also speaks of a study where they found that people tend to "read no more than one two pages of an article or book before they would "bounce" out to another site". I belive this is because people are more used to the aquiring information quickly.

Google

Is Google making us stupid? That's what Nicholas Carr discusses in his essay "Is Google Making us Stupid". He doesn't just mean google in particular though it's more that he used Google because Google is the face of the internet. He say's that the web has been a godsend to him as a writer because he can just reach out and pluck whatever information he is looking for and go about his business . But by power browsing like that no one really get's any real information. They get bits of it but If I were working on, say a puzzle of an eagle and all I had were two pieces, one of a portion of it's beak and one of a portion of it's tail I still wouldn't have the whole picture. Sure I could speculate on what I think the puzzle is going to be once I find the other pieces but it could be something completely different. Carr also states that ever since the internet he has changed the way he absorbs information. Things that used to be easy like reading a book, or a long article have now become hard to stay focused on. He says, " Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come so naturally has become a struggle." . So now we go back to my puzzle analogy. According to Carr the puzzle would never be finished, I would get bored and go off and make a sandwich come back and be like "Oh! I forgot!" start working on the puzzle again and then not be able to focus once again. The big picture or the "Wisdom" of the puzzle will never actually be absorbed until I could sit down and deep read that puzzle. So is Google making us stupid? Probably. Is Carr over reacting to Google making us stupid? Who knows. Does his article bring up a lot of interesting points about the way we absorb information, read, and go about our lives? Yes. Am I writing this last sentence because I can't focus on a task for a long period of time thus making it almost impossible to have a proper ending? Yes.

Kevin's Summary on "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

In his essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid” Nicholas Carr Claims that the way we read is changing do to the use of internet. Instead of spending the time to read everything that is in front of us we skim for important words or concepts. The internet has many distractions that it is hard for the user to concentrate on the reading. In his essay he talks to Scott Karp a lit major who altogether stopped reading. He also talks to Bruce Friedmen who admits that reading blogs more than three paragraphs is getting hard for him to do. So do to the internet people are not getting into the deep reading that they use to do and beginning to skim more.

Is it a crime?

Over the past years as technology has progressed author Nicholas Carr, writer of Is Google Making Us Stupid?, finds himself at increasing odds with his dependency on the internet.  Where before it was a simple matter to find himself lost in a book, now with the advances made in technology, he finds himself lost in a format where people's minds are being taught to bounce from one point of focus to another in rapid succession.
With an honest admittance, "I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do", Carr points out, in his opinion, the ever changing, ever growing speed of which we find information has begun "remapping the neural circuitry".
Finding ourselves with only one thing to do seems to be a mind numbing waste of time.  My view is that with constant stimulation to the brain people will feel themselves propelled toward the next distraction.  Simply focusing on one thing seems to be a thing of the past.  Right now as this essay is being written I find myself not only typing my paper, music is playing and a fan is on simply for background noise.  Soon email will be checked, links will be clicked, podcasts will be heard, articles will be skimmed, and instant messengers will begin beeping for attention.
Simply stated, 'The net is a God send' puts a new spin on perspective.  Is it a God send or is it another way in which humans will drive themselves to constant distraction?