Author Neil
Postman once said, “Technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in
equal measure. A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys.
Sometimes, it destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided.” (Postman)
Over the past few decades, the Internet has provided us with many new
advantages and disadvantages. But is this new tool doing more damage than it is
worth?
Possibly the greatest
new capability that the Internet has created for us is the ability to research
using the web. Rather than spending endless hours looking through books in
libraries, we simply turn to our computer or smart phones and search for what
we need. According to Nicholas Carr, author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” “The Web has been a godsend to me as a
writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of
libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on
hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after.” (Carr) We are able to find information is a
matter of seconds. Clearly, the ability to search the web for information is a
terrific asset.
In addition to providing us with the ability
to find information fast, research on the Internet provides us with access to
many more sources than ever before. We are now capable of hearing the
viewpoints from different people from all over the world. When writing a
research paper, we can find many different and diverse articles on the same
topic within seconds. We can even read full articles or watch videos. Truly our access
to a virtually unlimited number of sources is amazing.
Another major factor
in how the Internet has affected our ability to think is the emergence of
Wikipedia. Wikipedia has completely changed the way we research. In the early
days of the Internet, Microsoft Encarta was the encyclopedia of choice.
Unfortunately, their walled garden approach proved to be ineffective, and Wikipedia
took over the market. According to Zittrain, “There are versions of Wikipedia in every major
language—including one in simplified English for those who do not speak English
fluently— and Wikipedia articles are now often among the top search engine hits
for the topics they cover. The English language version surpassed one million
articles in March of 2006, and it reached the 2 million mark the following
September.” (Zittrain) Wikipedia has become the most popular and accessible
encyclopedia in the world. If you are interested in learning more about the
history of Wikipedia, here is a 2.5 minute history lesson!
Based on these three
advantages, one might think that the Internet is “helping us produce more and
better knowledge”. However, I contend that the Internet is far more damaging to
our ability to produce information than it is helpful. It has completely
changed the way we think. In fact, it has created a generation of lazy
thinkers. The youth of this generation do not read books on things that
interest them. Instead, they read a Wikipedia article or “Google search” their
topic. We have become surface level experts on many different topics.
Essentially, the Internet has vastly improved the breadth of our knowledge,
while completely destroying the depth to which we search. Carr said it best in
his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid”:
Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone,
or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry,
reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s
changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly
when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy.
My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and
I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the
case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three
pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.
I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep
reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle. (Carr)
I personally identify with Carr’s struggle
to sit down and read for extended periods of time. Today our phones, the
Internet, social media, and email constantly interrupt us and distract us. It
seems that we have learned to find information on a surface level as quickly as
possible, but we don’t have the attention span to search or read for very long.
Another disadvantage is the reliability of
the information that we often accept as fact. As we all know, anyone can edit a
Wikipedia page. However, we often read Wikipedia articles and accept whatever
they say as gospel truth. These articles can contain complete lies that were
simply made up for fun. In a famous case of Wikipedia editing fraud, a retired
newspaper editor was accused of being involved in the JFK and RFK
assassinations. There was no evidence to support this claim, but because it was
on Wikipedia, the prankster had easy access to the article. Consequently
reliance on the Internet has dramatically diminished my generation’s ability to
think critically.
In conclusion the Internet has provided today’s
youth with many new advantages and disadvantages. However the disadvantages are
extremely disturbing. The Internet has impaired the way we think and research
so powerfully that I feel it is more hurtful than helpful in our pursuit of
knowledge. In the words of HAL “Dave, my mind is going. I can
feel it. I can feel it.” (Carr)
Works Cited
Carr, Nicholas.
"Is Google Making Us Stupid." Atlantic. (2008): n. page. Web.
16 Oct. 2013.
<http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/>.
Zittrain,
Jonathan. "The Future of the Internet-And How To Stop It ." Yale
University Press. (2009): n. page. Print.
Postman, Neil.
"Informing Ourselves To Death." German Informatics Society. Germany,
Stuttgart. 11 Oct 1990. Lecture.
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