Is Google Making Us Stupid - Reading Response

Jeanne Clarissa Susanto
Nicholas Carr and James Cascio
Is Google Making Us Stupid? and Get Smarter

According to Carr’s article, I noticed that the Internet has obviously influenced human’s life nowadays. Now, we prefer to obtain information easily and quickly without any intention of understanding it first. We are likely will not try to read the information thoroughly anymore because the Internet has served all information instantaneously. I also noticed about what Carr said about the Internet changed the way we think because unconsciously the Internet serves us all answers swiftly. This convenience makes us easily losing our focus on reading a long article. People now tend to skim rather than to read and understand the whole article, which means it is the beginning of the Internet’s bad effect. It made me think that Internet has become something crucial in our life that maybe we cannot live without its existence because of our “addiction” of it. Also, it made me think that the Internet could affect our brain, and maybe it could reprogram our brain.
Personally, I use Internet very often, and after I read Carr’s article, I realize that Internet has got into me. I used to find information through books or newspaper but now I barely touch those things anymore because why do I have to bother myself to read a long article instead I can use the Internet which give me all information that I need. Other than that, it is hard to focus on reading a book because it forces us to think deeper. According to Cascio, that kind of abnormality called “continuous partial attention-deficit disorder”. It means that it is hard for someone to engage in deep or in other word to think deeply about anything. This disorder really explains what Carr’s thought that Internet could mitigate our concentration.
As Carr wrote in his article, “The Internet, an immeasurably powerful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies. It's becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV” made me think and realize that Internet really is our life right now. It seems that we can find, watch, hear, calculate, and even make anything through the Internet. However, it makes me shiver because it turns out that Internet really overwhelm our life, and at some point it can control our life. Hypothetically, when Internet overcomes our life, we start to see it as something that we cannot live without. As a result, people will use Internet all the time without even realize that it has become something that they can let go.
I really like when Cascio wrote, “And then there’s the question of stability: Would you want a chip in your head made by the same folks that made your cell phone, or your PC?” because it made me envision that some point, there is going to be a time when our brain are liken to the technologies. It means that one day we are no different with robots that human measured based on the most recent and most sophisticated machine. It also reminded us that it is true that we need technologies, but on the other hand it is also important for us as human that we also value our capability by using our brains more than we use technology. Eventually, there is a question occurs in my head, what if we are no longer can use our brain to think and do small things by ourselves because we already get used to use technology? What will the world be if that happens?