It took me about 3 hours to read Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/). Why would it take me so long to read a 4,000 word document? Well, I kept getting distracted. In the midst of reading…
- I watched a congresswoman give her piece of mind to a man who was abusing his status as “disabled” in the line of duty (http://www.upworthy.com/whats-the-worst-thing-you-could-say-to-a-congresswoman-who-lost-her-legs-in-battle-found-it?g=2&c=ufb2)
- I played a few rounds of Words with Friends
- I watched a super sweet proposal story that actually brought me to tears (http://www.nashville.com/news/nashville-community-news/yesits-the-proposal-seen-all-over-the-web)
- I learned about what Chinese students really think of some of our American classics (http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/chinese-students-hilariously-describe-what-they-think-about?bffb)
To be honest, I just started reading another one of the assigned articles when I got distracted again and started writing this blog post. I am also chatting online with my sister (hey Josie). While I’d love to vehemently argue that the internet provides us with more good than bad, I’m afraid that I’ve become an example of exactly what Carr was describing. I couldn’t get through the text because there was a lot of it and I’m used to skimming on the computer. I don’t want to sit and read pages and pages of material online. However, I will say that part of that could just be the method in which information is conveyed. I still love to read a good book, and when reading long papers I will print them out every time just so I don’t have to read them on the screen (sorry trees). I don’t think things are quite as bad as Carr suggests in his article, but I do think we are more prone to distraction now than ever before.