Final Essay

Ally Ferrell

RWS 100

Professor Werry

December 15, 2014

Final Paper

Just a few decades ago, the internet was made available to the general public for the first time. Almost everyone you see will have access to the web sitting in their pocket or even just at the tip of their fingers. The internet is used for research, communication, entertainment, shopping and so much more. I couldn't imagine that there is a person in any developed country over the age of 5 that doesn't know what Google is. There is no doubt that this technology has completely changed the way that us humans live. One thing that most can agree on is that the internet is in fact changing the way we think. However, many disagree on whether is is a negative or positive change. It’s important to discuss the effects of the internet because of its relevance in our society. It’s not going away any time soon. Many people have researched and shared their personal opinions on the topic to the public. Nicholas Carr is a columnist and author who focuses on the affect of technology on our mentality. In, Carr’s article,“Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, from The Atlantic, he argues that the internet is negatively affecting our minds. Clive Thompson has been a long-time writer for the New York Times Magazine and focuses on writing about digital technologies and their social and cultural impact. In Thompson’s article, “Public Thinking”, from his book, Smarter Than You Think, he claims that the internet is positively affecting our minds due to the writing and publicness of it. Howard Rheingold, an author who as always been intrigued in the effects of technology on the mind, claims in his article "Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies” that the internet helps our brains in many ways. In this essay, I will explain Carr’s ,Thompson’s, and Rheingold’s general views and opinions and a few of their specific sub-arguments. I will then enter the conversation, arguing my point on the topic using outside sources and personal experiences as evidence.

In Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, from The Atlantic, he claims that the current amount of use of the internet has serious negative effects on our cognitive behavior. One of his main sub-claims is that the use of the internet is worsening our ability to concentrate on one thing for a long period of time. He gives a personal example of when he tries to read a book in present day, “my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do” (Carr). He argues that with all of the hyperlinks and distractions on the internet, we are constantly switching focus from one thing to another. With today’s technology, one is able to have multiple tabs open, quickly switching between them as he or she pleases. Carr believes that this habit transfers over to real life as we are unintentionally learning to not be able to concentrate on one thing at a time. Another of Carr’s sub-claims is that we are also reading less quality works than before, which is not helping us become any more intelligent. Anyone can post on the internet and it’s hard to tell whats credible or not. Also, because the internet is a main media for entertainment, we are reading things that we enjoy rather than educational things. In their personal time, a person would probably rather read the more entertaining story about Kim Kardashian’s nudes leaking than a report on A person is far more likely to find false information on the internet and believe it, therefor causing deteriorating intelligence.

Contrary to Carr, in Clive Thompson’s essay, “Public Thinking”, from his book, Smarter Than You Think, he claims that the internet is actually improving our overall cognitive behavior. Thompson says “There are thousands of other forums crammed full of writing, ranging from twenty-six thousand Star Wars stories to more than seventeen hundred pieces riffing off Shakespeare’s works” (Thompson). With all of the options, of course we are going to switch from page to page. Thompson argues that the internet now has more things that actually interest people, so they are reading more. People may be switching sites more often, but they are reading more over all. Also, when one reads something that interests them, they are more likely to retain the information. However, Thompson goes on to argue that it isn't the reading we do, but in fact  the increase of writing due to the internet. He claims that “the internet has produced a foaming Niagara of writing”(Thompson). He goes on to impose that writing for an audience, even if its small helps people form ideas into words, create new ideas, and share information. Knowing people will be reading your writing, will usually cause you to think more about what you are going to say and create a more compelling and supported argument. Thompson is saying that we may do more reading and that it helps our minds, but that isn't as important as the writing we do.

Howard Rheingold, in his article "Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies”, focuses more on the effects social medias have on our minds. Rheingold argues that by using social medias, such as Twitter and Facebook, we work on our attention, participation, collaboration, network awareness and critical consumption. He complicates Carr’s claim that the internet worsens our complete attention to one thing at a time by arguing that the shared focus actually helps with multitasking. He says that attention is the "fundamental building block of how individuals" think, create tools, socialize, and transform civilizations. Contrary to Carr, Rheingold quotes Linda Stone who says that multitasking and continuous partial attention is just as good to work on as focused attention.(Rheingold). We need to know both so that we know how to focus on multiple things at once or on just one thing when necessary. The internet and distractions that come with it help form the skill of multi-tasking. Rheingold again complicates Carr’s claim that the internet is causing us to read non-quality works, lowering our intelligence. He argues that we are learning critical consumption, or what Ernest Hemingway called “crap detection”(Rheingold). This is the ability to find out what and who is trustworthy. We do this on the internet all the time when researching. People are, for the most part, aware that anybody can post on the internet. This awareness creates a sense of caution. We practice identifying bias and non-credible sources. 

As an 18-year old college student in 2014, technology and the internet are and always have been extremely relevant in my life. My laptop is my lifeline for class and entertainment. As I write this essay right now, I have two different documents open on Word, five tabs open on my internet browser, and my online calendar and iTunes minimized. 100% of the homework and projects I do for school is online.  My major is mechanical engineering and both of the classes I am taking for it right now are on a computer. The other day, I was doing some of my online physics homework and couldn't figure out a question. I quickly opened a new tab, copied and pasted the question, and found the solution on yahoo answers. I could have easily just copied the answer and submitted it for full credit, but instead I looked at the process and learned how the answer was found. Instead of just leaving this question blank or spending 20 minutes searching through my text book to only see the formulas I already knew, I instantly learned how to get the answer.

When it comes to my opinion on the subject, I automatically find myself agreeing mostly with Thompson and Rheingold, however, I think that,like most people, I just want to think the best of myself. I grew up with the internet and want to believe that it has helped me become as educated and as studious as I possibly can be. I took a step back, did some of my own research, and came up with a more unbiased opinion. All three authors bring up great points. This topic isn't just black and white, it has to be some shade of grey. These men all have valid points, however, they all fail to bring up an important point relevant to the topic. The authors are putting the entire fate of our minds up to the internet, and put no responsibility on the user. The internet is extremely relevant and isn't going away anytime soon, so no matter the effects of it, we should be focusing more on how to use it to its maximum potential rather than if we should use it at all or not. Many schools are considering replacing textbooks with tablets. Besides the pros and cons related to price and physical health, there are also many pros and cons of the effects to the mind and learning considered by “Should Tablets Replace Textbooks in K-12 Schools?”. One of the pros argued is that “tablets help students learn more material faster. Technology-based instruction can reduce the time students take to reach a learning objective by 30-80%, according to the US Department of Education and studies by the National Training and Simulation Association”. Instead of telling kids to put down their phones and to go read a book, we should be teaching them how to use their phone for more educational purposes. So many people do things only if it is convenient to them. The internet saves time and “time is money”.  And it is so much easier to quickly type something into a search engine than go to a library. When in class, if a topic sparks interest to a student, he or she can quickly and immediately google more info on the topic and share with the class to start a group discussion. This promotes the learning of research and group arguments and discussions. Of course there is the counterargument that kids will just use the tablets for entertainment, uneducational sites, and distractions. My response to that is that there always has been and there will always be the people who don't use their resources wisely. Regardless if it a library or a tablet, some people will use it to its full potential and some will not. When the internet was not around and the only way to find out the answer to a question was to go to the library, there were people who would go to the library and people who wouldn’t. It’s all about the inclination and personal values of the person.

Why is this important? Technology is advancing more and more every day. If we can not learn to use our current technology to its full potential, we will never be able to progress as a society. Way back when writing became easier for the general public to do, some philosophers claimed that this would hurt our minds, similar what to people are saying about the internet in present day. Where would we be today if we had listened to them? The internet is not going away, it is only going to be more advanced and have easier access. In order to advance as a society, we need to use the tools we have to its maximum potential.

Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”  The Atlantic. July/August 2008. Web.

Thompson, Clive. “Public Thinking_.” Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing 

Our Minds for the Better. N.p: Penguin, 2014. 45-69. Print.

Rheingold, Howard. “Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies”. Educase 

Review Online. October 7, 2010. Web.

“Should Tablets Replace Textbooks in K-12 Schools?” ProCon.  April 9, 2014. Web. 

http://www.tablets-textbooks.procon.org