Oh no! The internet is talking over the world! It’s destroying our brains cell by cell, oh wait, the article didn’t say that, I believe it said something along the lines of, “Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones.” (Carr 3) I guess we have to assume that the new connections aren’t as good as the old ones, though no evidence is given to prove this or even say this.
He also says something about our reading skills going away, “Reading, explains Wolf, is not an instinctive skill for human beings. It’s not etched into our genes the way speech is. We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand… We can expect as well that the circuits woven by our use of the Net will be different from those woven by our reading of books and other printed works.”(Carr 3) I stand corrected; our reading skills aren’t going away. That’s weird; again nothing is destroyed, just different. It’s also strange that he doesn’t think that reading is instinctive, because a written language is one of the requirements to be called a civilized people. Is the internet destroying civilization too? I hate to break it to you, but Miley Cyrus is doing a pretty good job of that all by herself.
I believe one point he makes is about how reading on the internet is damaging our concentration skills. Is this what is making us stupid? I’m sure there are a few ADHD kids who would have a problem with this statement. It will only last for a few seconds before they move on to something else, but for those few seconds they’re going to be pretty upset.
So I’m reading and I come across, “So, yes, you should be skeptical of my skepticism.” (Carr 7) I though Google was supposed to be making you stupid, not psychic. I hate it when people can tell what I’m thinking.
Then he goes on to give all these examples from history about people being afraid of new technology. Is it just me or does this kind of contradict his whole point?
Maybe the joke is on me and the title is supposed to be ironic, but I didn’t get that feeling while I was reading it. Maybe Google has already gotten to me.
After I’m done reading this I’m sitting there wondering, who is this guy? So I Google him, which is something I think is a little on the funny side god bless irony, and come across his blog. I read something he wrote comparing Rockband to coloring by numbers which was pretty good. It had actual points and everything!
I then looked around his page and found a link to something he wrote with J. Alfred Prufrock in the title. This happens to be the subject in one of the best poems in the world. I of course clicked, and found a piece that I not only liked, but loved. Technically it compares the plight of Prufrock to facebook, but much of the same points can be applied to blogging so I think it would be perfect for this class. I’m going to try to get a link on her to it, but I’m not promising anything, I’m not sure how to do it. I'll at lest have the address on here so you can copy and paste it.
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/05/the_love_song_o_1.php
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Thanks for the link. Carr has some interesting ideas, and there is some good reading on his blog. (It's always a good idea to do as you did and see who the author is behind a piece of writing.) Given his references to Prufrock, you might not be too surprised to know that Carr has a master's in English literature.
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