Stupid Google

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.