Hi, last class over but I am totally sitting in my room finishing the book and I must admit defeat here.. I think it's because I'm so connected and so invested in it, while unwilling to admit my lack of power over my brain's plastic bits that makes me hate to admit that he's super onto something here. The biological perspective is usually the more convincing set of data to me, but here I was writing it all off. His conclusion isn't overblown, our reactions are.
Also: I am writing this from my phone, while still in the middle of reading... You got me, friend.
His conclusion isn't overblown, our reactions are.
ReplyDeleteI did the classes discussion was not quite on topic with what was said in the book and focused on paranoia over big meanings like "loss of empathy."
Our brains have certainly changed for better or for worse, but we adapt and keep living. Or not. It is all very ambiguous. But as a society we are witnessing an change that will be studied ever more closely in years to come. In the first 20 pages, Carr sensitively asserts how he himself has felt himself change as a result of using the computer and internet.
At the end he questions the moral of using standardized tests to evaluate human potential. I for one would show no potential on standardized tests, but I do have potential. I think outside of the algorithmic function that a computer or system can asses human intellect. And so with the rise of standardized testing and electronic media altering how we learn, think, and carry ourselves; we are becoming something else. But not all schools require standardized test scores, that lets some alternative thinkers in as well as so skeep goats.
I am not sure I want to become something else, so I might move to Sub-Saharan Africa to live out my life in a slow egalitarian manner.
One nameless friend says "my brain is dead" "I am stupid now" "I can not think or remember like I used too" : these are the effects of living and working in a high passed over stimulated environment called NYC. So he continues to increase his pace of work and he is aging quickly as the stress and strain increase.
But perhaps its is our reactions that cause the stress and strain. Should we be less concerned, less worried about how we felt in the past, and just keep moving forward with out thinking? I dont think so. I think we need to establish self-limits to the amount we allow ourselves to be exposed to networked media and high stimuli. Restraint, rules and regulations will develop over time, hopefully. But for now technology and information is evermore spreading.
It will be interested to reflect back on these authors in years to come as the world evolves.
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Aaa I posted this to fast.
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