technology is damaging the way we think

9 April, 2014
Technology: Is it Damaging the Way we Think? Senior fellow at the Annenberg Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California and the author of Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, Neal Gabler, in his article “The Elusive Big Idea,” published by The New York Times (2011), argues that due to technology the development of new ideas and thought are of little value to society. He supports his claim by doing the following: first; introducing the idea that society is living in a post idea world, where thought provoking ideas are less common; second he recognizes that we use our immediate access to information “simply to know things,” rather than fully comprehending information and using it to form ideas; third, Gabler explains that society is living within Gresham’s law, in which trivial information is pushing out significant information, especially in the social networking world; and last, he acknowledges that in the future there will be even more information, but Gabler questions if there will be anyone thinking about it. In his article, Gabler tries to draw the attention of all people, who are consumed with technology and meaningless information, to show them that this trend must stop or else future society will be unable to effectively use information. Columnist for the Atlantic, Nicholas Carr, in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” claims that the internet has changed the process of how we think and because of that we are not able to fully comprehend reading material. To solidify his argument, Carr gets the opinion of Scott Karp, a blogger that blogs about online media, on how he takes in information. Karp, a literature major in college confesses that he has stopped reading books and now does most of his reading on the internet because he “just seek[s] convenience…because the way he thinks has changed.” Adding on, Carr gets the opinion of Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at the Tufts University and author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of Reading the Brain “We are how we read,” who worries that the internet promotes, “a style of reading that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deeper reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, mad long and complex works of prose commonplace.” Both Wolf and Karp show that the internet has caused people to read in a way that indorses convenience. Carr includes both Wolf and Karp’s opinion because they believe that due to the internet, the process of thought has changed and people are not able to fully take in information. Carr’s article qualifies Gabler’s perception of society and our inability to think and focus. Like Gabler, Carr highlights on the effect of information being convenient and immediate, explaining how the internet has caused people to change the way they read and think. In both arguments, Carr and Gabler conclude that because society relies on the convenience of technology people are no longer able to fully comprehend the ideas and thoughts. Carr’s article supports Gabler by showing how the internet has completely changed our process of thought. Carr demonstrates how technology is causing us to think in favor of convenience. While Carr’s article may support Gabler, NPR writer, Alva Noë, in his article “Google is Not Making You Stupid,” (2011) disagrees with Gabler, making the argument that we should not have to depend on our minds to store information, instead we should rely on technology. Noë furthers his argument when he explains how technology is changing our daily lives, while also recognizing that change has always been constant. He believes that technology is a tool, which has “the potential to extend our minds.” Adding on, he feels that it is natural for humans to rely on the tools given to us, saying “Why go to the trouble of relying only on our interior cognitive resources to keep track of what is going on around us when the world is right there and can serve reliably as a store of information about itself?!? ” Noë’s argument complicates Gabler’s claim. He brings in to question Gabler’s idea that immediate access to information is harmful. Noë believes we should not have to rely on our minds when we can use the tools around us, like technology. Noë disagrees with Gabler stating, “we are made — through evolution — to get the information we need, when we need it.” He suggests that we should have the ability to access information at any time. This idea challenges Gabler’s argument because Gabler believes that immediate access to information is holding us back from fully comprehending information, while Noë conversely thinks we deserve the rights to use technology to access information because we have evolved to a point where data is accessible through technology. Technology has become a major part of our lives and it is involved in almost every aspect of our lives, including how we use information. Gabler presents the idea that people are no longer able to think or develop new ideas because of technology. Carr’s article qualified Gabler’s argument by displaying the impact the internet had on people, exposing readers and their pursuit of convenience. Yet, Noë’s article questioned Gabler’s argument, explaining that we should rely on technology because it is natural and it can help our minds grow. With the internet and technology giving us access to all the information in the world, can there really be anything done to change our habits? Or should we just learn to accept society for what it is?