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?
Welcome to Our Blog Conversations Beyond the Classroom!
Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversation Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study? As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! I encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…). Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
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