How Is Google Affecting A Person's Life?

Electronics today allow the world is very connected in more ways than in the past. The way people read and write has changed a bit with the additions of tablets, computers, and smartphones. In the same sense as the way that a person would learn with books instead of screens our brains adapt to our situations and how fast we read and retain information. It has become common today to dismiss the effect of technology on our neural pathways. Consistently, in today’s day and age, a person can quickly complete a Google search to get an answer to almost any question. Though the internet's creation dated before Google's production and students could research information without Google being available, it did take a bit longer.

How has this more readily available information changed the modern world’s way of thinking? Nicholas Carr answers this questions in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and after reading it, one could see another side to having too much of a good thing. Originally this article’s publication year is 2008, so as of today it has been about ten years and technology has changed a lot since then. Before the creation of Google people would most likely go to the library and go through dozens of books to find the information needed to complete an assignment for school. There is a problem in today's technological society. One can focus too much on the ability that technology affords us, people overlook the broader issue of losing that critical aspect of losing oneself in writing and allowing Google and other sources like it to influence our lives and written persona. Nicholas Carr’s article starts out with him addressing the problem that he seems to have with reading and how hard it is for him to stay focused on it. Carr correlates this imbalance to how much time he spends on the internet. Carr is a professor and writer who writes a lot and likes technology, business, knowledge, as well as acquisition. Because of his background, he can connect with his friends and share his own experiences with them and get another opinion on the subject. Many of his friends agreed with his assessment and spoke their views on their own experiences. After taking note of Carr presenting surveys proving his idea of readers who were only skimming over pages to retain the information instead of diving in wholeheartedly. Carr gives his readers viewpoints from different experts in the fields of neurology, a still new science, as well as psychology. After taking into account all the different views, Carr takes out five inventions that have streamline or made things easier to do in life.

The typewriter, mechanical cloak, the industrial manufacturing system, writing, and lastly the printing press, these might be a bit old as they have been updated since they were invented. Though as it comes with any new tech that comes on the market, there are people who are going to love, people who will either hate or dislike it and finally some who hardly care at all. This viewpoint leads to an idea that artificial intelligence is going to be better than any old human brain. Carr is very adamant about the idea that an AI can be compared to a human brain is just not conceivable. Carr disagrees when he writes, “The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive. ” (46) Carr emphasizes that the human thought process will not be a process that can be created through mechanicalized means. Living in 2018, one can see many companies trying to develop the first working artificial intelligence, though there have been so many movies on robots taking over the world that it has to be in the back of any technicians mind while creating this revolutionary technology. Within the present day and age information is needed daily to gain a successful day properly. Such as does one need an umbrella for the day because there is a chance of storms. Living in an age where the access to information is readily available to everyone with the use of either a smartphone, tablet, and computer. Though this is not the only invention that has changed the way we look at the modern world. These five inventions are mentioned by Carr in his article the first, and one of the oldest would be the typewriter. The typewriter's been updated from the original to the more modern age.

The idea behind the typewriter is to make it easier to write not just writing with a pen or pencil and paper. Though Carr exemplified the idea of how the addition of a faster way to write, this seems to either tote out the more creative side or accentuates the cynical areas that are in a person's writing. So there are some downsides to better technology and how it plays out in one's own daily life. All things considered, Nicholas Carr’s article makes valid points and brings up some interesting discussion points. All in all, the use of technology is very prevalent in today’s culture, but it seems to be more of a commodity. Information that companies like Google gain from us influence what we see and what we may click on and explore. Google making us look stupid is not really what is happening, but allowing certain things that we view online to shape our thoughts and worldviews on certain things does. It is a conscious decision that one must always take care to be mindful of the lure of changing times.