Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Rebuttals about why Google is not making us stupid

     Thank God  that everyone does not agree with Nicholas Carr's claim and it may in some way of its own hold its truth, and although Carr may only have a one sided perspective of the way in which people make use with technology, there are other more positive perspectives to be shared in the project. During my research for rebuttal of Carr's claim, I found an online article from a website called Campus Technology. The article was written by Trent Batson whose views and perspective are rather enlightening to computer users. According to Batson books have been our foundation in the process of learning and technology and the uses of the Internet has expanded a new way in which we learn and interact  much like we do we when we interact within a group. He further explains that we go through the process of listening, and we take turns responding to each other in similar ways  we interact with the information we are searching for on the Internet. This is  much of what surfing the Internet does in our reading. He also refers to reading on the web as "hybrid orality" Batson). Indeed, he is opposed to the thought of Google making us stupid, but Google is showing people a new wave of fast learning in the exchange of ideas within our social environment.
     There was another perspective in reference to Carr's claim; the article was about"Google Probably not Making You Stupid" by writer Chloe Albanesius. according to Chloe, because we skim through information while researching does no harm to us mentally, but in fact, it is allowing human brains power to create better ways of communicating with technology.  We get smarter as we improve ways of creating more effective research. My personal views are that Internet allows us to make better choices, and as we gradually discover our own methods and techniques for researching information, our way of retaining information will improve. This article is similar in what Batson is saying. The Internet website are the voices that respond back to us to indicate that we have arrived at the right source or that we need to search further by connecting us to other links from their website which may not be prevalent to our degree of necessity for certain information. Certainly, no one desire to feel a sense of stupidity for wanting to explore the unknown possibilities of information that go beyond what books can reveal to the human mind.
     Another  discovery in rebuttal to Carr's claim was a similar  by the Future of the Internet Survey  conducted by Pew Internet and American Life Project. The survey was ongoing  which began December 2, 2009 until January 11, 2010. The purpose of the survey was to get a perspective view of how the year 2020 would be technically. In this survey, Carr's claim about "Is Google making Us stupid was included in the debate about skimming browsing rather than in-depth reading. The results implicated that by the year 2020, people will become smarter and make much better decisions because of more access to information, it will enhance greater human intelligence. When asked about respondents views on the future of human intelligence, their response were that it would likely remain the same. They further add that skimming is not the worse way in finding information, but it definitely gives us a broader view of information (Peter Norvig, Google Research Director). This information helps us to better understand our purpose in using technology and in knowing that we are not stupid in terms of discovering how to better access the highways of information through the Internet, and by not allowing us to become stupid but wiser in using the tools of computer technology in the future.

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