The internet if bursting with great, good, and many not so good ideas. Many individuals probably do not feel this is such a bad thing, but Andrew Keen does feel this is a bad thing. In his article The Cult of the Amateur he makes it clear that amateur writers and journalists are not a good thing. With so much information readily available for the reader’s consideration, it can be a daunting task to find information that is useful or even factual on the internet. The internet has made millions of people experts in fields that they may know little about. Just because we have access to unlimited information does not mean that information serves a purpose. However, we should not dismiss the internet’s nonprofessional writers and blogger’s as a terrible thing. The …show more content…
Not all information on the internet is placed there by amateurs typing away like monkeys, some of the information has proven quite beneficial. In Andrew Keen’s article The cult of the Amateur he encounters a man he refers to as an evangelist while in San Francisco at a wine mixer. This is during what Keen calls the second boom in Silicon Valley and the man is involved in a new startup. The new startup seems to be a mash up of several different internet sites and none of it makes sense to Keen. The author tells this man of his new project, “it’s ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule” (p. 414). The author believes in a book by T.H. Huxley that states if you give an infinite number of typewriters to an infinite amount of monkeys, one will eventually create a masterpiece along the lines of Shakespeare or Adam Smith. This to the author is the same scenario the internet has created, an infinite amount of users with keyboards writing anything they desire for the world to read. At the very heart of this infinite monkey or infinite internet user experiment lies the internet diary or more commonly known as a blog. Shamelessly, we blog about everything from our private
In Is Google Making Us Stupid? Nicholas Carr discusses how the increase and development in technology has shaped the way we do and think about certain things within our society. He tells us how as a society we have grown dependent on technology and look to it for almost everything we may need. Whether it is for an answer to a question, advice, a sickness diagnosis or when we have to do research, our first instinct is to look to the world wide web. He links the fact that people have tried to create a more efficient work ethic within different fields when it comes to hands on work, but that ideology has also flooded into our thinking towards the virtual side. Society has shown us that it is acceptable to look to the web as our primary source.
I can relate to this because every time that I have been asked to do research for a paper, the first thing I turn to is the internet. I don’t think that I have ever once gone out to find or discover my own information. The closest I have ever gotten to actually going out to find information was once in my cols class when we were all assigned a college resource to go to and ask someone working there what they are “all about”. I love that Schlesinger is concerned about this issue, I am too, and this worries me because one day my generation will be running the whole world and if we believe the answer to everything is on the internet what happens when we come across a question that the internet can’t answer? Will we leave it unanswered and simply forget about it or will we be able to go out and find the answers for ourselves. Kind of like Schlesinger askes “will we grow accustomed to only asking questions that we know we can answer by using out cell
With one easy click on the search button, Google grants entry to a reservoir of information for our use. Carr acknowledges that the internet “has been a godsend to [him] as a writer” because of the ease of finding information rapidly (Carr 732). Before, he would spend days searching through lengthy articles for the same material. Thus, web-browsing proves that not only is the internet useful for finding relevant information, but it is a time-saving tool. In today’s gener...
348). Carr introduces his theory by noting the observations in which the reading habits of avid internet users such as himself began to deteriorate (Carr, 2010, p. 348). What initially prompted Carr to invest in a computer was the vast variety of applications and communication tools which benefitted him in his career (Carr, 2010, p. 348). However, he claimed the internet progressed to be a hinderance to his capability to concentrate and work efficiently, thus justifying this phenomenon has changed the way both himself and others were learning (Carr, 2010, p. 349). Drained without having his daily ounce of technology, Carr molded into the man who slowly progressed to be dependent on the internet (Carr, 2010, p. 354). In comparison to his previous rituals, Carr found it all the more difficult to concentrate on a single page, let alone an entire novel. “I used to find it easy to immerse myself in a book or a lengthy article,” Carr states (Carr, 2010, p. 347). These subtle changes in his life was not only apparent in his own, but in through others as well. Carr mirrors the lives of many readers who excrete this same phenomenon today of losing track of their bookmarks. He exemplifies how reading habits have either ceased in entirety, or minimized to skimming as shown through his friend Scott Karp, a blogger who previously worked
Like Gladwell, Nicholas Carr believes the internet has negative effects. In his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Carr attempts to show as the internet becomes our primary source of information, it diminishes the ability to read books and extensive research. Carr goes on to give a very well researched account of how text on the internet is designed make browsing fast and profitable. He describes how the design for skimming affects our thinking skills and attention spans. He wraps up his argument by describing what we are losing in the shift toward using the internet as our main information source. Carr suggests the learning process that occurs in extensive research and through reading is lost. While the learning process can be beneficial to scholars and intellectuals, not everyone has the capability to follow through with it. The internet offers an education that anyone can have access to and understand. Also if Carr believes the learning process is better, this option is always available for people who want to learn according to this scholarly principal. However, for the rest of the population the quick and easy access has allowed the average population to become more educated, and to expose themselves to aspects of academia that previously is reserved for
The story I chose for this analysis is “Why, you reckon?” by Langston Hughes. IN this analysis I will be focusing on how the great depression in Harlem had effect on the story, how racism played a part, and how or if the characters were justifyied in their actions. During this time period the intense racial divide combined with the economic harships that plagued the U.S. during the 1923’s makes for an interesting story that makes you think if the charaters were really justified.
Both Nicholas Carr and Malcolm Gladwell debated how the Internet has affected humankind in both positive and negative ways. Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer for the New Yorker and the author of Small Change:Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted. Nicholas Carr is a writer who has formerly written for the New York Times, The Guardian etc, he also wrote Is Google Making Us Stupid? Gladwell’s and Carr’s essays identifies how the internet has a damaging effect on people.
In composing “Is Google Making Us More Stupid” Nicholas Carr wants his audience to be feared by the internet while at the same time he wants his work to seem more creditable. Nicholas Carr uses many different types of evidence to show us that we should be scared and feared as well as his credibility. Carr’s audience is people who think like him, who find themselves getting lost on the internet while reading something, someone who is educated and uses the internet to look up the answers to questions or to read an article or book.
In Is Google Making Us Stupid, Nicholas Carr disputes that due to new digital tools, peoples’ ability to retain and acquire information has been negatively altered. Even though, we have information at our fingertips, we often don’t take the time to soak in all the information. Carr mentions Bruce Friedman, a blogger, who finds it extremely difficult to read a “longish article on the web” and to try to focus on the importance of the text holistically (Carr 316). This is an issue that many can relate even Carr knows that, “ the deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle (Carr 314). Additionally, media theorist Mcluhan describes the net as “chipping away [mental] capacity for concentration and contemplation” (Carr 315). In essences, Carr states that we are having less of an attention span and consequently, less patience for longer articles (Carr 314). Therefore, this affects media outlets such as magazines, newspapers, and other articles, because they must conform and shorten their texts to fit the status quo that people safely enjoy (Carr 321). In addition, the net forces people to be efficient, and so, causes people to “weaken [their] capacity for deep reading” (Carr 317). People are becoming more driven on how quick he or she has to do something rather than think why this text is important. As a consequence, Carr believes that we are starting to lose our ability to be critical readers and
In the first paragraph, Jaron appeals to the pathos of the reader; he assumes that the reader is of the generation that has grown up in the digital age, thus they would agree that the most important aspect of the internet is the people who contribute to it. However, there is no reason to ever assume that. Some people may actually believe that user contribution detracts from what makes the internet a viable source of information. For example, if the internet were controlled by academia, it would most likely be a peer reviewed source of information. However, as it is, anyone can contribute information to the internet, which makes the internet not a reliable source for knowledge. We can see this in academia, which typically does not support the use of Wikipedia as an academic source, and Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that relies entirely on user contribution.
Now that we are living in an ever changing world, technology is viewed as the most resourceful tool in keeping up with the pace. Without the use of technology, communication would be limited to using mail for delivery and encyclopedias for research. Although technology has improved the way we communicate and find information for research, the information is not always valid. Unfortunately, for those of us who use the internet for shopping, research, or reading articles of personal interest the information is not treated the same as a your magazine or book. While such literature is reviewed by an editorial staff, internet literature or information can be published by anyone. In order to reap the full benefit of having the use of technology for any purpose, there are five basic criteria’s one must keep in mind as an evaluating tool for deciding whether or not the particular website is a reliable source for information.
Mainstream media such as television, radio, newspapers were the primary source of reliable information before the epoch of the internet. However, the situation has changed. The evolution of modern technology in the world today has led to the continuous increase in the methods of practicing journalism. Social and technological advancements have not only improved the pace and content of this field’s practice, but has extended its genre to online or cybernetic journalism. (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2007). News websites most of which are owned by major media companies and alternative websites with user generated content such as social networking sites and blogs are gaining grounds in the journalism field of practice. (Nel, n.d). One of the chief forces affecting the practice of journalism nowadays is online citizen journalists. Nel (n.d) defines citizen journalism as “individuals playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing and disseminating news and information”. He further adds that “citizen journalism is slowly being looked upon as a form of rightful democratic ways of giving hones news, articles, etc, directly by citizens of the world from anywhere.” One of the major researches conducted in the field of citizen journalism, describes the phenomenon as “individuals who intend to publish information online, meant to benefit a community”, and this information is expected to benefit the audience or the wider population in making decisions for the improvement of their community. (Carpenter, 2010.)
Keen, Andrew. The cult of the amateur: how blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of today's user-generated media are destroying our economy, our culture, and our values. New York: Doubleday, 2007. Print.
The internet as we all know is probably the most useful resource known to man in this day of age. Not only is the internet easy to access its easy to use. Nearly everyone owns a computer and nearly all of which have access to the internet. But isn't that a good thing? Millions of people having the ability to access and share all the information anybody could ever want.
The Internet has made access to information easier. Information is stored efficiently and organized on the Internet. For example, instead of going to our local library, we can use Internet search engines. Simply by doing a search, we get thousands of results. The search engines use a ranking system to help us retrieve the most pertinent results in top order. Just a simple click and we have our information. Therefore, we can learn about anything, immediately. In a matter of moments, we can become an expert.