Sunday, 11 November 2012

2 articles relating to an area of technology which interests me. (Internet)




 

Summary


This article from the Guardian poses the inevitable question: is the internet changing the way we think? Some experts give their opinion on the matter. The writer Nicolas Carr claims that the internet is altering our brains. Sarah Churchwell, an academic and critic, believes that it is changing our habits of thinking, as soon as we need information, we will instantly google it. We have become entirely dependent on these types of search engines and it would rarely occur to us to go looking for answers in an encyclopaedia or a dictionary anymore. The novelist, Naomi Alderman, argues that anything humans come in contact with will change our brains to a certain extent as we are constantly learning and taking in new information. She says it’s normal that we have become used to reading short summaries on Wikipedia instead of reading a whole book. Geoff Dyer explains how using the internet has reduced our ability to concentrate on one thing at a time.
I agree with all the various things said throughout this article, but I believe the internet is a positive change in our lives. It has brought the world closer together and made information more accessible to everyone. Yes, it had reduced our ability to concentrate for a long period of time, but modern life style is fast moving, we don’t have time anymore to sit down and read a book, we need to be able to read a summary and be provided with the information we need as quickly as possible, the internet is a necessity to keep up with the lifestyles we are required to be leading.

The internet is a vast and complex network of interconnected computers, hosting an equally complex network – the web – of images, documents and data. The rapid growth of this huge, manmade, information-processing system has been a major factor stimulating scientists to take a fresh look at the organisation of biological information-processing systems like the brain. It turns out that the human brain and the internet have quite a lot in common as according to Ed Bullmore.

The internet means that we can never get away from ourselves, our temptations and obsessions. There's something depressing about knowing I can literally and metaphorically log on to the same homepage, wherever I am in the world.

In my research, one think I got to know was the internet is almost as important as climate change. Whilst of course it doesn't threaten the existence of the planet like climate change.

In conclusion , I would like everyone to answer this question: The question is, will we use the internet's power for good, or for evil?

2 comments:

  1. I agree with your summary and your opinion, the internet has and will most certainly continue changing the world. The Internet is allowing us to communicate with others abroad within seconds which was unseen before the internet, because they could only send letters and postcards, now email is the most common form of written communication.

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  2. The article from the Guardian is quite relevant and it gives an interesting insight on how the internet is shaping our lives today :) and I suppose there'll always be some people that will use their powers for good or evil :) let's just hope there's more good!.

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