I found Ms. Jardine’s podcast to be
an interesting take on the age of the internet and Google’s role in the age of
information. It was thought
provoking as she described a variety of different eras throughout history and
their attempts at preserving knowledge and information. I found it particularly eye opening
when she described the many threats to losing valuable information brought on
by not just natural disasters but also war. Honestly, these were things I had never thought of and most
likely because I have grown up in the age of information being readily
available at my finger-tips, stored in a universal library of the internet. Her podcast and well-researched ideas
on the importance of safe storage for information fully supports my initial
argument in regards to Mr. Carr’s article, “Is Google Making us Stupid?” that
the internet and it’s vast resources of information is a natural progression of
evolution. It’s changing our
behavior and our daily patterns, as does any new invention or advancement in
technology, but it’s not making us stupid and we have a choice as to how much
we rely on the internet.
As Ms. Jardine explained in her
podcast, people have gone to great attempts to preserve information, keeping it
safe from ruin. The value of
information and having it available for the next generation and many
generations beyond is something that has been sought to improve over many
hundreds of years. It’s only
natural we would come to a place in history where information is so well
preserved, categorized and accessible as it is now on the internet. As I realized after listening to the
podcast, the incredible amount of information that is available via Google and
the internet isn’t something that just happened as a result of advanced technology,
it’s been a quest by many scholars, researchers and scientists to accomplish a
safe keeping, readily available library of information.
What’s even more appealing about
the internet when you think of it as a storehouse of information, is that it is
so accessible to anyone. In years
past, valuable information has been stored in prestigious libraries and vaults
all over the world only to be accessed by a few notable scholars. But today, we have years and years of
compiled information from people all over the world available to us with just a
few key words typed on the keyboard.
And better yet, all the information is well-categorized, easy to find
AND can be translated into a variety of different languages; truly a universal
library!
After listening to Ms Jardine’s
podcast, I realize now, that the internet and Google have reached quite an
evolutionary milestone when it comes to providing safe storage and readily
accessible information. And as I mentioned in my previous blog post, it is
humanity’s innate wisdom to strive for betterment. I don’t believe it is possible for human beings to reach a
point of complacency. We will
always be striving for greater knowledge and wisdom and a greater quality of
life.
I agree with your blog post. I think that the strides that Google has made to make knowledge avaliable to us is impressive. I think that we have to become more aware of how we use Google in finding information. I hope that our society can see that and not attack technology as it becomes more and more advanced.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your post. I think that google's easy access approach to information is a great thing in some cases, but sometimes it can make problems arise. It's all in what you are using these websites for to figure out whether they are useful/harmful or not
ReplyDelete"It’s changing our behavior and our daily patterns, as does any new invention or advancement in technology..."
ReplyDeleteI think that this is an incredibly interesting transition from the stance you had in your last blog post. It seemed to me that last week you were focused on the idea that we were consciously making a decision to go to the internet as opposed to finding information in a more formal way and that was harming us in the long run. But now, I'm sensing that your more inclined to say that it's not a conscious decision, but a natural way of life. We, at least our generation, were basically raised to work this way. So it is not a conscious decision, but perhaps it should be. Perhaps our problem is that it ISN'T a conscious decision. If we made it one, we could make a decision to go to the internet as a last resort.