I don’t want to catch any of you guys off guard so I’ll just let you know ahead of time, this is gonna be a long one so please bear with me.
Well I must admit there were a lot of interesting and true things stated in this article. I couldn’t exactly find where in the article, but it said something along the lines of the internet giving us a shorter attention span. I unfortunately have to agree with this. In the course of reading the article I drove to Fresno AM Track, watched TV, ate dinner, took a nap, made some online purchases, and watched half a dozen YouTube videos.
I constantly found myself wanting to do something anything else, than read the article then and there. But for the last half of the article I forced myself to sit there and read the whole thing through, which I successfully accomplished I might add. I felt a little like Carr when he said “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” What does that say about people using the internet more frequently? I think it says that we no longer legitimately try to sit there and read something, a book for example, the whole way through and have the same deep thoughts and reflections that we used to have. The thoughts in solitude that added to the glory of books and all that was in them. We now just surf the net looking for the most entertaining thing to read/do and then move on to the next topic rapidly. We allow ourselves to be distracted and look for that thing that captures our attention most and act upon that.
For example I, while reading the article, obviously got distracted and went on random searches. I wanted to search most visited websites on Google but before I could start the word “visited” it showed an alternate list of things I might be “interested in.” And I’ll be damned, I was. I saw most expensive cars and got curious and clicked that and searched that for a little bit then went on over to YouTube and see some of these cars in video. While on YouTube I was distracted with another thought and this time it was Parkour (also known as free running). While I watched some of those videos I realized what was happening to me and got frightened. I got distracted by Parkour while I was checking out nice cars when I was supposed to be checking out most visited websites while I was supposed to be reading the article. I got distracted while being distracted while being distracted essentially. And I wondered what am I doing? Why can’t I just do what I initially set out to do?
The answer to this was because of the availability of the sources on the internet. Google allowed me to search whatever sporadically came to my mind and YouTube let me actually see that stuff. Maybe that’s why it sometimes takes me so long to get work done on the computer. I feel like my mind is being hijacked by the internet. Sounds kinda weird but I really think that’s what happened.
Google is essentially trying to do this as Sergey Brin and Larry Page “speak frequently of their desire to turn their search engine into an artificial intelligence, a HAL-like machine that might be connected directly to our brains.” As Page said in a speech of his “‘The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people—or smarter’”. Just as with the invention of the clock “in deciding when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock”, is Google that new invention that is slowly going to creep up unbeknownst to us and try to control the very way we think and function? In his interview with Newsweek Brin said “‘Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.’”
How would we be better off with an artificial brain? How? Granted we would know all the facts to know about life but that would be it: facts. What about the very things that makes us human; thoughts and opinions? What about those things? Would they just disappear? I don’t know my brain was just rattled by that comment made by one of the FOUNDERS of Google and I’m still reeling a bit. But that’s about all I have to got say right now and follow the link below if you wanna check out one of the videos I “discovered.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB4uzs_C8dU&feature=related
Oh and sorry for not relating any of this to Cat’s Cradle, I’m sure there are lots of connections between the two though.
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Alright Aman so even though you blog looked insanely long I decided to read it and leave you a comment. I can completely relate to the short attention span idea. I pretty much find it impossible to sit down and just focus on one thing, especially if it involves homework. I think while writing my blog I was listening to music, on the internet, and texting all at the same time. We just receive so much stimulus from the world that we are so used to so called “muti-tasking”. Also, I really liked the quote, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” This is a very true statement, but I don’t think I would want to go back to the process of searching through books in the library for information.
ReplyDeleteMy man Aman Brah ceases to amaze me. Your ideas are pretty grand my friend. Where should I start off? Youtube has to be your favorite website for real. I would understand why, since it teaches you pretty much anything you want to learn. The tecktonik, pencil tricks, pakour, music, and fight videos you are always watching. It is a legit site for tutorials. That is what happens when you try to do homework assignments on computers. I have to same issues. I will start listening to music on Itunes, go on Facebook, check my emails, and totally forget about the homework I was even working on. I think it is really true about the focusing issues they have been researching about internet users. I get so distracted when I try to read long articles and lose focus constantly like the article says. By the way, I love the quote you picked out from the writer. The one when he said “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” I loved it so much that I stole the same exact one and used it on my blog… But yeah, this was really good stuff dude, even though you didn’t relate it to Cat’s Cradle at all. Here’s an idea though. Go and read Katie Campbell’s blog because she actually relates the article to Cat’s Cradle really well. Dueces mi amigo.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff, Aman. I must say, I do quite agree with you. I put some of the same stuff in my own blog, especially that about the distractions and whatnot. The part where you "got distracted while being distracted while being distracted" sounds a lot like me. I agree, too, that it is probably because of the availability of information that comes with the internet; I know that if I'm working on something, and have a random thought to look something up or click on a link, I could spend quite some time before returning to the work. Speaking of links, thanks for providing me with another reason to put off that math homework... Anyways, nice blog. Ciao
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