Article 1 Response

   Is Google making us stupid? This is the question; we so easily blame others for our own doing. While Google may be altering our thought process, it is also altering our world. Technology is expanding as is the demand for it. The more dependent we are on it, the more distracted we become. Our reliance turns to these technological devises rather than relying on our memory. The author in this article says that they "feel like someone, or something has been tinkering with my brain, reprogramming my memory. My mind isn't going but it's changing. My concentration starts to drift... the deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle." Google supplies us with limitless answers to all our limitless questions."Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes".When we turn our reliance to Google, our brains are not doing any of the work, therefore, we lose our muscle memory (so to speak). The next time we go to do research, our brains go towards what is easiest for it to do; get on the internet, type it in and use those easy resources. 

  Information is so easily given to us, that we have began to get used to being spoon fed this info. We see it everyday: in the news, through social networking, calling, texting, there are thousands of ways. "Media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the shape and the process of thought. My mind now expects to take in information in a swift moving stream of particles." We used to go low and slow, doing our own work and putting the time and effort into it. Now days, all it takes is a click to do what we need to. Our attention span for things is dwindling. "The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print.We may well be in the midst of a sea of change in the way we read and think, rarely returning to any source they'd already visited. We 'power browse', and avoid reading in the traditional sense. We are how we read, weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading." While I strongly believe this is true, the school system is pushing us to use more and more technology. 

   This article was a lengthy one, and I think it was honestly a test. The author was probably testing his ideas out on his own work. My friends complained about reading this article, but I didn't have a problem with it. This may have been because I printed off the article. It was 15 pages, but as I went through the article and attacked it with a highlighter. These Technics are things that help me stay focused and make reading fun. Google is not making us stupid, we have lost the ability to challenge ourselves. We are the ones who train our minds and make ourselves stronger.