Well, this post is super late because I am not a technology person in the slightest and it took me forever to finally learn how to set up my blog. It’s really hard. I’m sort of enjoying The Shallows. I think Carr brings up a lot of interesting points and backs them up with good sources, but overall, well I don’t really like technology, so I don’t enjoy reading about it so much.

The adult brain is going to change no matter what. We are not stagnant human beings; we are dynamic, ever-changing. Professor James Odd discusses this, as he says our brains are very plastic. “The plasticity diminishes as we get older – brains do get stuck in their ways – but it never goes away” (26). I think this could be reflective of the ever-changing technology. As our brains are expanding, like plastic, we think of new ideas, and new ways to adapt to our environments. In this sense, technology isn’t necessarily limiting ourselves or our creativity, but rather we work with it to establish new ways of doing things.

This idea is brought to a whole new level later on in the reading. “Our essential role is to produce ever more sophisticated tools – to “fecundate” machines as bees fecundate plants – until technology has developed the capacity to reproduce itself on its own. At that point, we become dispensable” (46). This is a scary idea, the idea that we have created these tools that we once needed, but no longer need us. This kind of reminds me of a horror movie, where the technology rules over the humans. We have become slaves to our own inventions. I don’t fully agree with this. Humans are the inventors. We still have the “power-off” button. I don’t really think technology now has the power to reproduce on its own. I think there is always the person, the brain, behind the machine, and that is an invaluable point that’s not yet going away.