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The Internet first was used publicly on August 6, 1991. The Internet is a global computer network providing a variety of information and communications facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols. Over the recent years the Internet has been utilized in multiple different ways, which include watching the news, researching, documenting papers, financial transactions, shopping and etc.
Although some may argue that the use of Internet and technology are a positive and beneficial tool in society, Nicholas Carr essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” provides example of the effects that technological advances have had on individuals, including statistical data of these effects, and further on supports this by adding the personal accounts of individuals who have experienced the negative effects from the Internet and technology.
Inventions such as the the internet, the clock, and typewriters are justs some that have affected individual in negative ways.
The Internet is an invention that has affected individuals in multiple negative ways. When Nicholas Carr used the internet he started to get a negative impact from the use of the Internet.
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“ She followed all my directions. It was really easy to contact her and respond very fast as well. ”
On page one in the second paragraph Nicholas Carr stated, “ My concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.” When Nicholas Carr used the Internet he was not able to concentrate the same way he used to when he normally read books. He began to lose his attention span and did something else that distracted him from the digital readings.
Carr also stated in his third paragraph how the research he was pondering on can now be found online rather than from resources being primarily or secondarily in just one click of a link. This further proves how the Internet impacts several people in a negative way, because the Internet does all the intellectual research for them. As a result it is making individuals lazier and as well making them unable to maintain intact concentration on the work that they are doing. The internet has been a tool that has affected individuals in a negative aspect, the clock is another invention that has done the same.
The clock is another invention that has lead society to become more reliant on technology. The first modern clock was invented by a German inventor named Peter Henlein around the year 1511, in the 14 century, called the spring-clock. Lewis Mumford on page 5 described how the clock has disassociated time from human events and help create the belief of “abstract framework of dived time.” Lewis Mumford “abstract framework of dived time” means that the brain now thinks that we can divide time resulting in the idea that we are able to multitask efficiently . Additional James Weizenbaum provides his perspective by stating, “Remains an impoverished version of the older one, for it rests on a rejection of those direct experiences that formed the basis for, and indeed constituted, the old reality.” We are losing our own senses of the real world obeying the clock on when to eat, work, sleep, rise, and many other time management activities. The type writing machine also comes into play on the effects that it has on society.
The type writing device was invented for people to type their work instead of hand-writing it. The typewriter was invented by Christopher Latham Scholes in the year of 1862.Nicholas Carr quotes Fried Nietzsche use of the typewriter , “ His vision was failing, and keeping his eyes focused on a page had become exhausting and painful, often bringing on crushing headaches. In the quote provided it is evident that Carr used Nietzsche personal account in order to demonstrating how Nietzsche was losing focus on words and as a result lead to multiple disconveniences.
Friedrich A. Kittler further stated the effects that the typewriter had on him by stating it “changed from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style.” The message that kittler is trying to convey is that there is a lack of intellectual text in what is typed versus what is handwritten. To further prove his point this can be seen in our modern time in the way that text messages are written. For example, when cuz is written in text messages instead of cause, due to the fact that we are becoming lazier as a result of modern technology. Statistical data demonstrates the effects on how individuals minds are being affected negatively from technology.
Statistical data is used to prove how the use of internet and technology are still to this day impacting society negatively. The University of London has conducted research on two of their websites that are commonly used by the public. One is operated from the British Library and the other operated by a U.K. educational consortium. They stated that, “ They found that people using the sites exhibited “a form of skimming activity,” hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they’d already visited.” Also in the article it says, “ They typically read no more than two pages of an article or book before they would ‘bounce’ out to another site.” The statistical data demonstrated how readers who read articles or blogs have formulated a new type of reading that is called skimming. Skimming is a technique to scan only for important terms that makes readers more lazy to read the actual article or book that is not beneficial because the reader will not capture important details. The Internet is being used negatively in the outside world.
The Internet has brought chaos not only to us, but to our environment as well. “About 14 percent tend to decline that the Internet is good for us.” In the blog, “Has The Internet Been Good For Society? Fewer Saying Yes” it states that, “ Including beliefs that it isolates people, helps spread fake news, can be harmful to children, encourages illegal, and hinders. In fact, we see this still in our present day all because of the internet. We see bullying happening all over the world because the Internet influences many individuals negatively to the point where that one person who is getting bullied can not take it anymore. What happens next? That individual tends to hurt him or herself by suicide, not only him or her self, but others as well like school shootings taking action. The digital computer is a electronic technology that was created to use the Internet given different functions.
The digital computer was first created by John V. Atanasoff from 1939 to 1942 with the help of his assistant graduated student Clifford E. Berry. Alan Turing is a British mathematician who published a paper proving that the digital computer can perform multiple functions that is programmed to do. The computer is now being used to do all our work using different functions to solve all different types of problems you can give it. Making us rely more on the computer generator than our own minds putting our own minds down when it comes to solving our personal and real world problems. Personal accounts from Scott Karp, Bruce Friedman, and Richard Foreman bring evidence that the use of evidence is not beneficial.
Personal experiences were also introduced in this article to prove the fact that we do not concentrate enough when it comes to deep reading. We get to distracted on reading or we just simply do not read and just procrastinate when it comes to doing our work. Scott Karp a blogger of online media confesses, “ I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader.” “ What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed,” he states. Scott Karp liked to read so many books and majored in literature, but ever since he started using the Internet to read online he does not read as many books as before. He has developed a new way of reading books online and changing his way of thinking having problems staying focused on deep reading in original printed books.
Bruce Friedman also a blogger about the use of computers in medicine, also describes the use of the internet in his personal life. Bruce says, “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print.” “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.” He has lost the ability of reading long articles and short articles to the point that he does not want to even read anymore. He developed the new kind of reading which is skimming only for specific key ideas or words. Now what are we going to do just stop reading and not exercise our brains to increase our intelligence?
A playwright Richard Foreman describes what is at stake because of new advance technology and the Internet. He comments, “I come from a tradition of Western culture, in which the ideal (my ideal) was the complex, dense and “cathedral-like” structure of the highly educated and articulate personality—a man or woman carried inside themselves a personally constructed and unique version of the entire heritage of the West.” He concludes with this, “We risk turning into “‘pancake people’—spread wide and thin as we connect with the vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.” We are not only just developing a new kind of reading and thinking, but also creating a new person within us. We are not being unique with our own personality and behaviors of cultural inheritance we tend to act like other people who we really are not because of the connection of network information. We are structuring a new kind of human being because of the information of technology and internet we put into our minds.
Yes, you could use the Internet for beneficial and necessary needs. For example, we could research on a topic to get resources from articles to articles, getting from one link to another to help us gain knowledge and write a paper on. Then again, will we even read the article completely and focus on the the topic we are searching for? Or will we spend our time doing other distractions? Think about we will not even tend to read it because we get so distracted easily and tend to procrastinate by texting, reading emails, watching videos, listening to music and other types of distractions that stops us from doing our work. The advance technology and Internet is taking over the way we read, think, write, and even our own personal body.
Individuals rely more on the Internet and Technology than their own intelligence. The Internet toxicating our minds in enormous amount of ways being lazy by letting the technology do the work for us, not being able to focus, loss of intellectual reading skills, being someone else we should not. The Internet is simply taking over our minds and body developing a new to think, read, and write. Although some may argue it is beneficial to use the Internet it is not we need to avoid using the internet as much as possible and rely in our own brain.
Citations
The Internet is Leading Us to Our Demise. (2021, Dec 14). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/the-internet-is-leading-us-to-our-demise-essay
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