And the Verdict Is.... (Blog # 6)

While listening to the podcast for this week’s blog post I was expecting to hear about all of the great things that the Internet has accomplished and how the risks of the Internet pale in comparison to the advantages. I was pretty disappointed to find out that the podcast did not provide much t compete with Carr’s article against the use of the Internet.

            The main point of the podcast for me was that the Internet has changed the way that we can find information and that information is more or less permanent now.  Now although I do agree with this, and I do think the Internet is a grand well of information, this does not argue against Carr’s argument. Although the point was made that there will always be people who will argue against change in the way people gather information.  So I decided to look online for the advantages of the Internet. The top advantages of the Internet are:

Faster Communication

Information Resources

Entertainment

Social Networking

Online services

e-commerce.

            All of the above are great tools the Internet allows people to use with ease. However, even with such a great tool I still agree with Carr, I believe that the excessive use of the internet is changing the way that human beings think and that it is making it more difficult for people to focus. I believe that people need to spend less time on the computer.

Pakhare, Jayashree. "Advantages and Disadvantages of the Internet." Buzzle.com. Buzzle.com, 01 Dec. 2011. Web. 01 Oct. 2012. <http://www.buzzle.com/articles/advantages-disadvantages-internet.html>.

Ms. Jardine's Podcast

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.

Sorry, but you can't change my mind. (Blog #6)

Mrs. Jardine's podcast really didn't change my stance on the issue that Carr had brought up in his article last week.  But, this is mainly because of personal preferences.  Jardine mentioned the idea of "too many books, too little time"; as in, we get a sense of total overwhelment when attempting to retrieve all of our information through books.

I think that's a lazy standpoint.  There is NO such thing as too many books.  I can understand how it can be overwhelming; you walk into an old library with giant dusty volumes on shelves reaching the ceiling, yeah.  You can freak out and wonder where to start.  But then you get over it and you dive right in because those giant dusty volumes hold the most amazing things and living in a huge mansion with stacks of books everywhere would be incredible.

To turn to technology just because there are too many books and too much information and we don't have the capacity to store it all in our brains is ridiculous, in my opinion.  The reason we use technology is because of convenience.  So that we don't have to spend hours pouring over books looking for that perfect quote for your research paper.

Get over it. We must realise that technology is a beautiful thing, yes.  Its great, and it makes our lives easier and the world run a little more smoothly.  But it should not give us an excuse to be lazy.  Use it, take advantage of it, but always know that there is more that you can do.  It's not so hard to just open a book.  So just do it.

Also, Jardine's little reference to Harry Potter was completely inaccurate.  Not only does Harry's story begin in the early '90's, no muggle technology works around magic. Duh.

I bet she just got her Harry Potter information off of the internet and didn't bother reading the book.  Just goes to show.


"A Point of View: Why Didn't Harry Potter Just Use Google?" BBC News. BBC, 01 June 2012. Web. 02 Oct. 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16443825>.

Reinforcement (blog 6)

After listening to this podcast I still have the same idea of children/people today. Technology is placed in the lives of children at younger ages each year, rather than playing with building blocks and matchbox cars they are playing with an the latest apple or android product out on the market. Their idea of solving a problem is simply "Google it". We all fall victim to this at one point or another, if there is simply no other way to get the answer I need I will google it to just have the project done in a timely fashion. This reinforces the power of the world wide web and other technology alike.

Nap Time with Ms. Jardine (Blog #6)

     First off, I would like to take the time to say Ms. Jardine basically put me to sleep.  At least she could have thrown some music in there for background, but I know that wasn’t happening.  She spoke so monotone that I just could not really focus on what she was saying.  She spoke with an accent and that didn’t help much either.  So in all reality I was not really interested in what she was saying.

     That podcast did not change my opinion about Google.  As technology continues to grow, I feel people as lacking personal experiences.  For example, if someone sits inside and plays countless hours of video games – that person is not receiving the proper social skills needed to communicate with others.  So for some people that are using technology to benefit their lives are lacking in a different area.

     People just go crazy over the newest piece of technology.  According to The Guardian, “Apple sells 5-million iPhone 5’s in the first three days.”  Just because it is the newest and best piece of technology, what makes the old stuff so bad?  So what makes the iPhone 4 so terrible?  Oh that’s why! Because the iPhone 5 has a few more updates and it is the new thing.  I just find that outrageous.  People are not grateful with what they have.

     

     This type of technology this will be coming out could make people even lazier than we are now.  Just in your glasses can you take pictures, face time, tweet, text, call, etc… So it is other stuff rather than just Google making us lazy.  Google is not as bad – but it is still responsible as being a culprit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSnB06um5r4

Rushe, D. (2012). iPhone 5: Apple sells 5 million in first three days. The Guardian. Retrieved September 24, 2012. from http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/24/iphone5-apple-sales-first-weekend

A Limitation on Knowledge (Blog Post #6)

After listening to A Point of View, I thought back to an earlier blog post about the documentary “Future Shock” and how people have this mentality that too much is happening too fast for our minds to comprehend the information. Lisa Jardine provided us with the history of how information has been processed by starting with the printing press and explaining the negativity that ensued when people started to use books. One statement that stood out to me was “too many books, too little time.” I think that this is a different question that we should be asking is whether or not these resources are helping or harming us as a society. To me, this goes beyond Nicholas Carr’s argument about Google changing our thinking patterns. Along with my previous blog post, I agree that Google is causing a shift in our deep thinking and can be a distraction. However, I feel that Google is not problematic in that we are now able to access information that is unknown.

I think that our approach of using Google should change but I think that as a potential source of useful information we can rely on Google to find facts or discover new knowledge that we did not know before. Granted, I understand how some can see using the Internet as a primary source of information is bad. Where there are multiple issues with looking at blogs, online articles, or Wikipedia, the approach to using search engines have to change. The fact remains that using Google has been very beneficial to modern day society and is without a doubt one of the most popular search engines to use to find information. As an article in CNN explains, other search engines are trying to emulate Google.

“Google, of course, remains the search king. Recent efforts to revolutionize Web searching have failed to unseat the dominant California company, which captures nearly 64 percent of U.S. online searches, according to comScore. Tech start-ups like Cuil, which billed itself as more powerful than Google, and Wikia, which relied on a community to rank search results rather than a math formula, have largely faded away after some initial buzz,” (Sutter, CNN).

For now, it is safe to say that using Google has helped progress how people can get information from a variety of different places. I think that as time goes on people will be able to refine that information even more. In addition, seen in the video, people will still use Google because of its accessibility and ease.

To go back to my blog post on last week, I will defend that the Internet is a big distraction and causing for a shorter attention span. Yet, if people held this view presented in Jardine’s podcast, information would never have been kept up with and eventually through time we would have to store the information somewhere. I do think that it is more of is our society ready for a change compared to how much can our society handle? Like Harry Potter, we have a desire to want to know more about a particular topic because we are curious by nature. Should information be controlled? I think that is up to that person to decide what is too much. For myself, I would like if I could have that information available to me.

Works Cited:

Sutter, John. “New search engines aspire to supplement Google.” CNN. Date Pub.: 12 May 2009. Date Accessed: 01 Oct 2012.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOQdGDz75gE

CNN. “Study: Google not the best search engine.” YouTube. Web. 01 Oct 2012. 

Am I Lazy Already? (Blog #6)

Am I Lazy Already?  (Blog #6)

My thoughts and feelings about what feels like a ‘rapid advancement of technology’ is, perhaps, in line with the article written by Nicholas Carr:  “Is Google Making Us Stupid”.  I’ve read and reread this article at least three additional times, going back and forth between it and the podcast in the hopes of trying to makes some sense of it all.  And, I would have to say that Ms. Jardine’s approach solidified what I was already feeling.  Her reflection said “Too much information; too much to know; too much material; too widely and swiftly disseminated” resonated what with what I was feeling.  So much information makes it hard for us to remember and retain, and allow for our brains to categorize all the information into its proper “bins” for future use. 

This brought me back to a line in Carr’s article, “I’m not thinking the way I used to think.  The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.”

I am speaking as someone born in 1960 and I come from a lifetime when owning and obtaining a library card meant almost as much as getting a Learner’s Permit”.  It was a sense of power and pride.  To other people, it was a visible sign that I knew how to read and that I enjoyed making the effort to find information that would enhance my life.  I am not saying that I learn less when I get information from a website.  But like acquiring the information from a website was easy and quick to do, retaining the information lasted nearly as long for me.  I can only tell you that getting the information meant nearly as much to me as  I would have made the effort to get up and go find it someplace else.

I like the thrill of the hunt.  I like that there is a scavenger hunt-approach to getting information when I do it from book to book.  In some respects you can get the same feeling, I guess, from sifting from one site to the next on the computer.  It just doesn’t feel the same for me.  In her article printed in Erica Bradley makes the point, “Not having to shut off our telephones keeps us connected.  So much so that we hardly need to even get out of bed.” (Page 1) 

I may be scoffed at because my article/report isn’t filled with all the mind-blowing interesting facts that are otherwise at my fingertips because I searched the internet.  To me, that is alright.  I like that I was the one who actually had to do the physical search to find what I was looking for and didn’t have it handed to me.  There is a sense of pride in that. 

As someone who already struggles to remember and retain information due to physiological reasons, the hard copy will always be the way to go for me. 

What my imagination tells me for the future, is that our bodies our minds will be able to think the search and when we sit down at the computer and look at the screen,  the information we thought of  will be there waiting for us. 

At that point, I am afraid that we will have become a very lazy society, if we haven’t already.  According to Erica Bradley and her article “Technology is Making Us Lazy”, she closes with the line, “The downside to the internet is that it is making us lazy.” (Page 1, final line).

-JT

Helium, March 10, 2009, “Technology Is Making Us Lazy” by Erica Bradley.

Information Overload (Blog #6)

Listening to the Podcast by Ms. Lisa Jardine I began to think about how there is so much information out there we can't seem to learn it all, which in a way is dumbing ourselves down. If you think about it, we probably read about so many different things a day and when it comes to the end of the week we have forgotten what we read in class. It's almost like we ourselves are being overloaded with information thanks to the readily available information out on the internet with the assistance of Google.

I was reading an article by David S. Moore about the placement of Video and visual aids in Learning and teaching Strategies and he said in the article, "Students are not empty memory chips awaiting information transfer." And now having listened to the podcast by Ms. Jardine, I begin to think about how much information is given to us as students and how much we have to read or look up... WE JUST CAN'T REMEMBER EVERYTHING! I believe this podcast has changed my opinion some what. It's not just Google that is dumbing us down, but the amount of information we are given in a day, especially as students, is overwhelming. The internet is simply adding onto that amount of information we get and makes it that much more!

I remember as child that I could tell my mom every single thing I did in a week at school. Now, I only remember the big things that happen. Something a little less exciting, I forget about it and can't remember it.

Personally, I hate taking tests. I can get all the information and write it all down and study but when I take the test, I find it hard to remember everything that I was taught over a 3 month period.

People tend to remember little blurbs of things and forget about the whole long article. Everyone can remember their best friends status update, but when it comes to a whole article, people will only remember the first and last parts of it. Mostly because skip over a lot of it, but also because academic articles tend to have WAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION. Or they can become really wordy which scares off a lot of people. Most people like things to be short and sweet to the point.

As far as Google, I don't think they are the cause of the dumbing down of society, they are simply helping the problem. As time goes on, we expect people to know that much more information, and people can't handle a ton of information all the time. But with the internet making it easy and faster to find the information. We just simply aren't use to having to really look for the answer. We just want the answer now and quick.

Moore, David S. “The Place of Video in New Styles of Teaching and Learning Statistics.” The                   American Statistician, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Aug., 1993), pp. 172-176.

People are the problem blog 6

The podcast did not change my view about if Google is making us stupid or not. People are making people stupid. We are given all this new technology but it does not say anywhere that we have to over use and abuse it. If I choose to sit on my computer and play video games for ten hours a day then I can understand why people would say technology is making us stupid. The amount that people use technology is what is making them stupid. If we did not use technology so much it would not be a problem. There is a lot of people that use technology constructively and to help them with school work and other things so it is not completely bad.

            People may not be using books from the library as much, but a lot of those books that we find in the library can be found on the internet. There are many websites that have all the scholarly journals that we use to get information. The mix of technology and the old school way of doing things can help people. Like with the library here on campus we are able to use the computer to see what books are in the library or not. Everything that can be found in the library can be found online people just are not using Google and the internet in that way.

The growing laziness of people is the reason they are becoming stupid. People allow technology to affect them negatively so they are at fault. There are many people that do not allow technology to run their lives and I believe those people are smarter. When used properly technology can make people smarter being able to communicate face to face and having the skill to use computers expands what a person can do. Using technology is like knowing another language. People who know more than one language can relate to more people and communicate in more ways. People who know how to use technology well and communicate well face to face can relate to more people. If people could balance how much they use technology I think it could make people smarter.