Blog #9 Juicy Claim

For my three possible working theses I decided to focus on the topic of technology, since it offers a broad spectrum for writing. As well as a few of our readings have offered information in this area. Thesis #1- Many people in society who missed the technology boom argue that the younger generation are too reliant, could it be that the more technologically advanced children become, the more they seem to rely on technology for everything? Thesis #2- In 1882 Friedrich Nietzsche bought a typewriter. A composer friend of Nietzsche noticed that his writing had changed, it became more telegraphic, he conveyed. Ever since the first technological advancement people have been made to believe that they are better or more precise with the most recent inventions. Thesis #3- Propaganda is known world wide for it's lies and deceit to people, no matter what society one might live in. The internet offers a wide spectrum of information, in which anyone in the world can add to the information that already exists. Is the world a more dangerous place because of the internet? The three theses I have decided to choose for this blog are general thoughts that popped into my mind while reading our most recent article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

Blog #8 Is Google Making Us Stupid?

In this illustration, Nicolas Carr suggests that with all of the wide information on the internet, he is unable to engage into things that he used to. Carr describes that he can no longer just find himself deep in a book, that he always feels that certain drift. He becomes fidgety and can't concentrate on the things that he used to. He explains that over the last few years the internet has been a godsend to him as a writer. Carr says that, the things that used to take him days of research are now condensed into minutes on the computer. So is Carr suggesting that the internet and and such resources a bad thing? I don't believe he is siding with either. In my opinion there are negatives and positives to both sides. He says that it has just changed people and the way they think. Some of us have become lazy, and will hardly skim a few paragraphs. Yet with text messaging and phones, we have certainly started to read more. In the last paragraph Carr says, "As we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence." Finally he comes to the conclusion that the world is present day is making us similar to robots. Which comes to the ultimate question "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" It's making us much more reliant and anxious. "Oh I'll just look it up" or, "I don't know the answer so I'll go find it" a very common language of ours.

Blog #7 Learning To Listen

From the choices on the "This I Believe" website I decided to read an article about change. It was titled "Learning To Listen," and the author was Peggy, without a last name. I started out just browsing and had no such luck seeing anything that interested me. So I went to the themes and clicked change. I came across this writing and liked the title so I decided to read on. This was a narration/summary of Peggy and her life events which eventually made her become a good listener. She begins by saying that she grew up in a family where arguments and conflict at the table were necessary. Then as her life moved on she found it difficult to listen to people and to take in what they were actually saying. She could not put herself in their shoes. In attempts to cure herself of this attribute she took a trip to South Africa. There is where she helped with the AIDS pandemic and promised she would listen like no other. She listened for two strait months. She says in the article, " Had I not listened I would have missed the very faint 'I love you' of a young child." This was my favorite part because in the end she found that learning to listen ultimately improved her life and gave her the skills to be more open with people.

Blog#6 What's the Matter with Kids Today?

In the beginning of this article it begins to talk about kids today and how they don't care about anything, only their iPods and internet. It then says,"Or is it the older generation that the internet has seduced?" This is now including majority of the world and stating it's not really only the kids that have something wrong with them. The article then transitions into how terrible the internet is for young people, meanwhile they should be reading books and watching Dr. King. When I began reading this article I was sure it was about how corrupt young people were today. As I read further into the text I was surprised that it wasn't bashing on young people as much as I thought. I liked the part where it concludes that teenagers read and write for fun, that it is part of their social lives. What I got from this article was that with a little research regarding the internet, it really isn't the villain at all. Lastly, this article began with the negative effects of today's children, and transitioning into why these "negative" effects are actually positive. "Thank the internet for making him or her a writer and a thinker."