HW 10 - Informal Research Internet

Topic: I am interested at how does the Internet benefits/harm us? I focused more on Internet other than being vague about digital representation devices because I think Internet is the one that really plays a big role in people's life. Without Internet, the phones or computers might not be as fun as they originally are.

Is the Internet making us stupid?

The article is basically about how Internet could make us dumb in terms of reading skills. Carr who has wrote an article called "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", and claimed that by doing these researchs through Google; we get extensive results that caused us to have the habit to skim through things. Therefore, by having this habit, we will soon be unable to read the full text because it is too long. As reading on, he also said that it is not just Google, but the whole Internet could affect us in a negative way based on the structure- sources always available.

"In fact, Carr argues, when we give in to the natural impulses to click and skim, rather than to read and think, the Internet may actually doing us a disservice: It shortens our attention spans and even inhibits our ability to read longer books and articles." I never realized this until I read this article that I have been skimming through things while I am reading. In one way it is helpful because as long as we got the idea, it is okay to just scan through it. By doing that, it might even help us to save more time rather than just reading the full long text. But in the other hand, it really shows how we don't have the patience to bear with long reading. Is it possible that I just happened to skim through and it is not really a habit from numerous sources on the Internet? "Right now, you're probably happy that you have the vast resources of the entire Internet at your fingertips. It's a feeling of power, isn't it? All that information, all that content, right there for you whenever you want it?" Somehow, I find this true because we often do research by googling it, and we do feel the sense of power by just "fingertip" it. Even the research I am doing it right now is through Google. It really did dominates many of us and limits the way we look at things although we been to different source. Overall, it is still from GOOGLE, as one major source that most of us use.

Is the Internet making us stupid?
Is Google making us Stupid?
In the article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", Carr kept blaming the Internet for preventing him to focuse more on books. He also shared his friends' similar experiences to claim that the Internet does make us stupid because we no longer can take long readings because of the "ubiquity of text on the Internet" . Even thought they like to read, they tempt to skim through it and they claim that it is not just making them dumber, it also changed the way they think. From one of the source that Carr used in his article said, " It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense. " Carr believes that reading an actual book is different from reading through Internet, and it does change our way of thinking because "our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged. "
I did not fully finish reading the article, when I read on I tempt to skim through and nothing really catches my eyes. However, I did find some interested ideas in this article. As reading it, it seems Carr values reading a lot. Like what we discuss in class before, why reading is better? His crucial argument of this article is basically saying reading is the only way to make you smarter. "We may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it’s a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking—perhaps even a new sense of the self." I find that he has a pretty good argument on why people should read, but at the same time it contradicts. By having different kinds of reading and thinking, this will also implies that reading on the Internet will cause us to have a "new sense of the self" also.
Is Google making us stupid?

How the Internet can affect health?

Both the article and the video is saying that now teaching the seniors how to use the Internet could help them cope with loneliness and depression. From teaching them how to use facebook, emails, and other devices that related to interaction, it shows that it actually works because the society has slowly included the old people into it.

WOW. Some of these old people are like age of 90s, and they are still learning how to use a computer. I am very amazed by that, and surprised that these seniors are actually have the passion and will to learn. Usually old people avoid to interact with the youngsters because of the gap. But now, it seems people are really including everybody into this. " 'What few that's left, they don't even know what a computer is,' she said. 'They're still in the dark ages like I was. I'm not there anymore!' " I find it funny how this old lady is comparing the digital era to the dark age, and how she feels different from her friends who don't know how to use a computer. It looks like they feel they are young once again.

How the Internet can affect health?