I don't know if the internet is changing the way we think as much as it is changing the way we do things. If we need information on a specific topic we don't have to look through book after book. We can go to a website and read a few paragraphs. If it doesn't have what we are looking for we can easily switch to a new one. It doesn't mean that we can't focus it just means that there is something better out there. I think the author of Is Google Making Us Stupid may be having a more difficult time concentrating because he is getting older, not because of internet use.
The brain implants discussed in Get Smarter are frightening. It reminds me of the movie Wall-E. It is about a futuristic society. The people in the movie no longer have to walk so they become extremely overweight and are no longer able to get around on their own. If people allow themselves to be implanted with an electronic "brain" will they have to learn anything? If they are using an electonic brain and not their own will it begin to decay? Who will develop future technology if people begin to rely on machines to give them information? I think that it is great that people can have pace makers to keep their hearts beating and electodes in their brains to keep their hands from shaking, but an artificial brain is going too far. It's unethical.
"If people allow themselves to be implanted with an electronic "brain" will they have to learn anything? If they are using an electonic brain and not their own will it begin to decay?"
ReplyDeleteYou raise some interesting questions at the end of your post which I have wondered about as well. The web's effects does seem to push us towards being some kind of "robot" in the future and its interesting to see what happens because of those effects.