I really enjoyed reading Nicolas Carr’s article and found it to be extremely relevant to life today despite being somewhat dated. One concept that came up repeatedly throughout the article was the idea that our brains learn to adapt with time and experience because of their plastic nature. Carr explains how this is applicable to our use of digital mediums for reading because over time many of us have become incapable of reading longer texts for sustained periods of time (page 3, paragraph 6). I definitely related to what Carr was saying and can understand how our brains are literally changing as we continue to integrate technology into our everyday lives.
Carr also talks about the way that maximizing speed and efficiency has increasingly become the primary motivator for factory owners and company administrators over the years. I think this concept has gained a lot of attention in our society recently and when you give it some thought it makes a lot of sense in the world we live in today. Many of us lack any sort of work/life balance and valuable productivity above all because we know we can easily be dismissed from our work when there’s someone or something else able to do the same work for cheaper (page 5, paragraph 5).
On page seven the author talks about the way that people often present themselves to be knowledgeable but in reality are actually quite ignorant and growing even more so as time goes on. I was thinking a lot about how this is true not only for professionals and authority figures in society, but also for ordinary people as well. It’s easy for people on social media to present themselves as being knowledgeable and trustworthy, when in reality most of us are only knowledgeable about the surface level type information that we get from the media (paragraph 2).
One thing included in the article that confused me was the example of the clock used on page four in paragraph four. The author explained how the invention and incorporation of the clock into our lives has led us to rely on a man-made measurable tool that we’ve created as opposed to relying on our own senses to guide us. Although I understood this example, it brought up a lot of questions for me since it’s hard to conceptualize a time when clocks didn’t exist.
Another question that came up for me was about the quote that the author mentioned on page six in paragraph four. Carr included a quote from Sergey Brin that says, “Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.” I found this quote to be really interesting and thought provoking as I would argue that I don’t necessarily agree with this assumption. I’m curious whether others feel similarly or whether they agree with Brin’s statement.
I am also curious about whether there is something that we can do in order to try and mitigate the effects of a changing brain in response to our frequent internet reading/browsing. On page three in paragraph six, Carr explains how our brains are wired to adapt to the things that they are receiving input from. Is there something we can or should be doing to reverse this? How long does it take for us to get to this level where we can see and feel the changes that have happened? How will this affect children who are growing up as digital natives?
