Technology plays a role in every one's everyday life. Without technology, we would all be lost and confused, not knowing what we would do to survive. Some people believe that with new advances in technology, people's critical thinking and reading skills will slowly vanish. Relying on these advances will make us dependable on computers and lack common knowledge if we were to ever need it in a time where computers crash. While some people really believe that technology is affecting our lives negatively, there are some, like myself, who feel that it is only making us more intelligent and making our lives simpler than they've ever been before. It allows us to research whatever we want, quickly, and obtain the information that we want to obtain, rather than have to read through everything in order to find the section that we are looking for.
Everyone has there own personal opinion on this topic. Authors like Adam Gopnik, Gary Small, Gigi Vorgan, Nicholas Carr, and Michael Wesch all have their own opinions about the advances in technology and the effects that is it having on our lives. Usually, these opinions are based upon the type of person someone is and the period of time when they grew up. Older people are starting to open up to the technological changes and evolve into this new world. They are beginning to understand the new forms of communication, like instant messaging, e-mailing, and texting, and are slowly beginning to "flush out" the old ways of communicating from their brains. Society is not going to go back to the old forms of communication so the only thing for them to do is to understand these changes and "go with the flow."
Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan stated that the Internet allows us to shift through "large amounts of information quickly and decide what we feel is important and what is not important." This is exactly why I feel that the Internet has done nothing but benefit us. Who wants to sit down in a library anymore and sift through research books all day looking for information? Americans lives are way to busy to be doing this. With society today, we are constantly running around doing millions of errands all day long. When we need to research something, we want to do it quickly so we can go on to our next errand. The Internet allows us to do this.
People like Nicholas Carr and Michael Wesch have different views on this matter. Nicholas Carr feels that the Internet is only "making us stupid." Carr, and I'm sure other people like Carr, say that the Internet is "chipping away our capacity for concentration and contemplation." He feels that the result of using the Internet is our attention is scattered and our concentration is diffused. While I can agree to this to some extent, I do not agree with it enough to say that the Internet and other technological advances affects our lives negatively. Of course, from time to time, we become distracted by social networks, YouTube videos, instant messaging, video chats, and video games while on the computer. To me, it doesn't affect the way I think, read, and/or write. It all depends on the type of person you are.
Across the Web are many advertisements and many links to different websites. When we click on one link, it gives us an option for another link that we might be interested in, and by seeing it, we click that link as well. Michael Wesch makes an argument that in a way, the "machine" is using us. He argues that the nature of reading, writing, and thinking is changing and only affecting us negatively. In his video, he states, in his point of view, that we have become dependent of the Web 2.0 and has changed the way we view the world and our thinking process. The computer, to him, is using us to its advantage when in reality, it should be the other way around. Just as I stated about Carr, I disagree with Wesch. The computer has only benefited us in so many ways like being able to pay bills online, shop online, order movies, communicate with people from a distance, etc. Our lives have become so hectic that we never have a chance to relax. The computer gives us that opportunity to relax since we can complete a majority of our tasks from our couch at home.
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