1. Reading on the Internet has changed from reading print due to its convenience.
2. James Olds, a professor of neuroscience says “The brain has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions.” As different technologies come out we adjust to them fairly easily over time and that’s what has happened with the internet. We’ve altered the way our brain functions to read from the internet.
Frederick Taylor of Midvale Steel created a formula for an efficient worker. “Midvale’s employees grumbled about the strict new regime, claiming that it turned them into little more than automatons, but the factory’s productivity soared.” Carr shares this example with us because it relates to how the internet is, specifically Google. Google might be the most efficient search engine for finding information; but Carr is making the argument that it might be too easy and dumbing us down.
Carr writes about how people he’s talked to have said they too have trouble reading and focusing on long pieces of writing. The more they use the web, the harder it gets. We read differently online and tend to skim more and pick parts to read instead of just reading the whole thing.
3. Neil Postman wrote about how television was changing us as a society. There are similar beliefs in this article. Carr writes that the internet has becoming the new medium for the media and integrates all other mediums into it. It’s similar to how Postman felt about television taking over our lives and becoming a large influence on us.
Postman writes about the Typographic mind and how our brains work differently if we watch someone talking on television or if we read the copy. Carr writes about Bruce Friedman in his article who is a frequent blogger and he says he has trouble absorbing long articles both on the web and on print. Something is changing within our brains to make us read differently just as the development of television has given us an alternate way to think of things.
Postman argued that we learn differently from television compared to reading print. The whole classroom environment has changed. Learning has changed dramatically once again because the internet lets us obtain information even faster. First we had to do research by reading books. Then we could watch informative television programs. Now we can do both of those on a computer as well as search for random information about anything.
4. I think the thesis of this video is that Google users need help to search for something even as easy as a cartoon picture of piza. Oops, I mean pizza. Spell check failed me. I think it’s a semi accurate depiction of Google users because when we search we usually do start out very basic. Google does however do a good job at narrowing your results the more specific you get.
5. I do agree with Carr that the internet, and I guess Google might be a big part of it, is changing our brains. I got up about six times in the reading of this article due to other distractions including other web sites. I’ve never enjoyed reading, especially things that don’t interest me. And I’ve found that it’s not becoming easier like it probably should be.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Chapters 3-6
Chapter 3:
I had heard that the statistics about global warming weren’t good; but to read that it’s progressing three times faster than originally predicted. I have to admit I don’t pay much attention to the news, but the fact that I have heard about everything that happened with Paris Hilton that week and not this is sort of weird to me.
Once again, the comparison between what is important in the news and what isn’t surprises me. In December 2007, Fox, ABC, CBS, and MSNBC all covered the “Simpson jinx,” referring to her jinxing her boyfriend’s football game. While at the same time in Paris, world leaders met at a conference to raise billions of dollars to support Palestine.
My question is...How can the “important” world stories be filtered out and replaced with these “junk food” stories?
Chapter 4:
The story of the small-town farmer residents in rural Pennsylvania resisting the dumping of sewage sludge from other states was something I enjoyed reading. I grew up in a small farm town in Connecticut, and I know a lot of families that make their money off of the land they work on. I was glad to hear that that town and over one hundred others resisted the corporate feedlots. It’s news like this that I would like to hear and no the overwhelming number of negative stories we hear and read in the news.
I was surprised to read about Cuba and its efforts for health care. I didn’t know that they were so pro active about creating opportunities for better health care. No offence to Cuba, but if they can do it, why can’t we?
My question is (after this statement)…Freshman year I did a research paper on the news and how the majority of the news reported is negative. If there are positive news stories there, why doesn’t the media want to share them with us?
Chapter 5:
I thought it was interesting that on the front page of newspapers, 53 percent of the quotations from stories expressed opposition to the MCA. I thought this was interesting because I figured there would most likely be more positive stories about it. And since 80 percent of the front page quotes do take a definite position, it seems like there isn’t much room for opinion about this topic. It would be nice for this topic to be a little more objective.
The report done that showed 43 percent of quoted sources of their data expressed opposition to the MCA in one way or another makes me think about how the news paper differs from television news. It seems like newspapers are more critical of topics such as the MCA compared to the way television news might report on it.
My question is…Should newspapers deliver the news to balance out the news we see in TV, or should they both be balanced independently?
I had heard that the statistics about global warming weren’t good; but to read that it’s progressing three times faster than originally predicted. I have to admit I don’t pay much attention to the news, but the fact that I have heard about everything that happened with Paris Hilton that week and not this is sort of weird to me.
Once again, the comparison between what is important in the news and what isn’t surprises me. In December 2007, Fox, ABC, CBS, and MSNBC all covered the “Simpson jinx,” referring to her jinxing her boyfriend’s football game. While at the same time in Paris, world leaders met at a conference to raise billions of dollars to support Palestine.
My question is...How can the “important” world stories be filtered out and replaced with these “junk food” stories?
Chapter 4:
The story of the small-town farmer residents in rural Pennsylvania resisting the dumping of sewage sludge from other states was something I enjoyed reading. I grew up in a small farm town in Connecticut, and I know a lot of families that make their money off of the land they work on. I was glad to hear that that town and over one hundred others resisted the corporate feedlots. It’s news like this that I would like to hear and no the overwhelming number of negative stories we hear and read in the news.
I was surprised to read about Cuba and its efforts for health care. I didn’t know that they were so pro active about creating opportunities for better health care. No offence to Cuba, but if they can do it, why can’t we?
My question is (after this statement)…Freshman year I did a research paper on the news and how the majority of the news reported is negative. If there are positive news stories there, why doesn’t the media want to share them with us?
Chapter 5:
I thought it was interesting that on the front page of newspapers, 53 percent of the quotations from stories expressed opposition to the MCA. I thought this was interesting because I figured there would most likely be more positive stories about it. And since 80 percent of the front page quotes do take a definite position, it seems like there isn’t much room for opinion about this topic. It would be nice for this topic to be a little more objective.
The report done that showed 43 percent of quoted sources of their data expressed opposition to the MCA in one way or another makes me think about how the news paper differs from television news. It seems like newspapers are more critical of topics such as the MCA compared to the way television news might report on it.
My question is…Should newspapers deliver the news to balance out the news we see in TV, or should they both be balanced independently?
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Project Censored Story #1
Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
The point of this story is to inform people about how many Iraqi deaths there actually have been since the war began. The story focuses on the US' involvement and occupation in Iraq as the reason why so many have died. This story might be censored because our government might not want the public to know about how many Iraqis have actually died from the war. That number doesn't seem nearly as important to the public.
This article provides a lot of statistics that are important for people to understand. The biggest statistic that is provided in the first sentence is that over one million Iraqis have died as a result of the 2003 invasion, according to a study conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB). This seems like a straight forward fact but I think it can be a little misleading as well. It doesn't say how the Iraqis died, but it sort of implies that the deaths were caused directly from US soldiers. I'm sure a large number of those deaths were caused by terrorists.
Another statistic is of how many Iraqis have died in the year of 2006 by US forces. In 2006, an average of 10,000 Iraqis were killed by US forces per month, or 300 a day. This statistic may have been censored because it is still a big number on a small scale. It's difficult for us to imagine one million Iraqis (1,000,000) compared to 300 a day.
In February 2007, an Associated Press poll was conducted asking a sample of US residents how many Iraqis had died as a result of the war. The average respondent thought the number was under 10,000, about 2 percent of the actual amount. I don't think it's our faults we don't know the real numbers. But it does somewhat motivate me to find more information about this.
This last bit isn't a statistic. It's a quote by thirty-two-year-old Maha Numan, a refugee from Iraq. "I decided to stop dreaming of going back home and find myself a new home anywhere in the world if I could. I have been a refugee for three years now living on the dream of return, but I decided to stop dreaming. I have lost faith in all leaders of the world after the surges of Basr, Sadr City and now Mosul. This seems to be endless and one has to work harder on finding a safe haven for one's family." I find this quote pretty depressing, which I guess is the point of putting it in this book. It's hard for people who haven't been to Iraq during the war to put themselves in the shoes of the soldiers, residents, and ex-residents. Quotes like this one gives a perspective of how people their are feeling. I think it's important to put ourselves in their shoes.
Additional Information
Project Censored
Wiki
The point of this story is to inform people about how many Iraqi deaths there actually have been since the war began. The story focuses on the US' involvement and occupation in Iraq as the reason why so many have died. This story might be censored because our government might not want the public to know about how many Iraqis have actually died from the war. That number doesn't seem nearly as important to the public.
This article provides a lot of statistics that are important for people to understand. The biggest statistic that is provided in the first sentence is that over one million Iraqis have died as a result of the 2003 invasion, according to a study conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB). This seems like a straight forward fact but I think it can be a little misleading as well. It doesn't say how the Iraqis died, but it sort of implies that the deaths were caused directly from US soldiers. I'm sure a large number of those deaths were caused by terrorists.
Another statistic is of how many Iraqis have died in the year of 2006 by US forces. In 2006, an average of 10,000 Iraqis were killed by US forces per month, or 300 a day. This statistic may have been censored because it is still a big number on a small scale. It's difficult for us to imagine one million Iraqis (1,000,000) compared to 300 a day.
In February 2007, an Associated Press poll was conducted asking a sample of US residents how many Iraqis had died as a result of the war. The average respondent thought the number was under 10,000, about 2 percent of the actual amount. I don't think it's our faults we don't know the real numbers. But it does somewhat motivate me to find more information about this.
This last bit isn't a statistic. It's a quote by thirty-two-year-old Maha Numan, a refugee from Iraq. "I decided to stop dreaming of going back home and find myself a new home anywhere in the world if I could. I have been a refugee for three years now living on the dream of return, but I decided to stop dreaming. I have lost faith in all leaders of the world after the surges of Basr, Sadr City and now Mosul. This seems to be endless and one has to work harder on finding a safe haven for one's family." I find this quote pretty depressing, which I guess is the point of putting it in this book. It's hard for people who haven't been to Iraq during the war to put themselves in the shoes of the soldiers, residents, and ex-residents. Quotes like this one gives a perspective of how people their are feeling. I think it's important to put ourselves in their shoes.
Additional Information
Project Censored
Wiki
Blogging Introduction
Hey! I'm Mike Deedy. I'm a junior here as a Digital Film Making major. My philosophy is to do what makes me happy and to just take it easy. I had a significant media experience over winter break. I saw the movie "The Wrestler." This was significant to me because it was directed by one of my favorite film makers, Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain.) I highly recommend it to any movie lover with a heart. It's a tear jerker. Check out the trailer!
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