Internet: The Advancement for Mankind or the Death of Intelligence
Mohamud Bulle
Internet: The Advancement for Mankind or the Death of Intelligence.
At the introduction of the internet, the age old question that accompanied with every advancement came to the forefront. Many have pondered whether the internet’s benefits out weight the risk it presents both consciously and unconsciously from the beginning. Some have asked is the Internet our master, or a simple tool that we control? To the optimist, this very question is a rhetorical one they rarely tend to consider. In their eyes, how can such a sweet, innocent tool of exploring specific evidence, paying one’s bill, and social networking become our master when we, as humans, are responsible for its very existence? To the skeptics, this question has to, must be answered. To them, it’s essential that we, as a collective unit, decide if the internet is controlling us so we can abandon it and have our mental capacities cleared up from propaganda that the Internet feeds us. In Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, this whole debate is brought unto the forefront. According to Carr, the internet limits our knowledge growth, rather than expand it. Although I, as one of its avid users, see many benefits of the internet to our daily lives, I understand Carr’s argument that the internet presents us more challenges than it solves by placing a great demands on our attention, while providing with large amount of tiny pieces of data that feel like a great deal of knowledge.
In his book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Carr illustrate precisely the problems the internet brings to the table. Carr reminds the reader that the great minds of the past had no need of great databases of information to formulate ideas. According to Carr the members of the post-modern age are inundated with too varied viewpoints. Hence reading this book asks us to pay a close attention to the choices we make about our basic lives based on the technology, weighted with assumptions about the nature of
Internet: The Advancement for Mankind or the Death of Intelligence.
At the introduction of the internet, the age old question that accompanied with every advancement came to the forefront. Many have pondered whether the internet’s benefits out weight the risk it presents both consciously and unconsciously from the beginning. Some have asked is the Internet our master, or a simple tool that we control? To the optimist, this very question is a rhetorical one they rarely tend to consider. In their eyes, how can such a sweet, innocent tool of exploring specific evidence, paying one’s bill, and social networking become our master when we, as humans, are responsible for its very existence? To the skeptics, this question has to, must be answered. To them, it’s essential that we, as a collective unit, decide if the internet is controlling us so we can abandon it and have our mental capacities cleared up from propaganda that the Internet feeds us. In Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, this whole debate is brought unto the forefront. According to Carr, the internet limits our knowledge growth, rather than expand it. Although I, as one of its avid users, see many benefits of the internet to our daily lives, I understand Carr’s argument that the internet presents us more challenges than it solves by placing a great demands on our attention, while providing with large amount of tiny pieces of data that feel like a great deal of knowledge.
In his book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Carr illustrate precisely the problems the internet brings to the table. Carr reminds the reader that the great minds of the past had no need of great databases of information to formulate ideas. According to Carr the members of the post-modern age are inundated with too varied viewpoints. Hence reading this book asks us to pay a close attention to the choices we make about our basic lives based on the technology, weighted with assumptions about the nature of
Cited: Carr, Nicholas G.. The shallows: what the Internet is doing to our brains. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print.