Reading The Shallows, it’s difficult not to project your own experiences onto those of Nicholas Carr. He skillfully highlights the many social concerns and challenges that we face as a society moving forward into the digital age. One passage in particular really compelled me to think of the effects this transition has had on the way we function on the most basic level.
“Sometime in 2007, a serpent of doubt slithered into my infoparadise … I missed my old brain.” (13-14)
In this passage, Carr expresses his concern about the effects the Internet and the resources for which it is a platform, which have essentially changed the way he thinks. As his dependency grows, his ability to focus deeply declines. His brain becomes unsatisfied with simply retaining knowledge and instead craves more and more–it needs to be overstimulated in order to feel satisfied. In many ways, he describes the internet as a sort of addiction. And if you think about it, it’s true. As a whole, we are becoming less capable of concentrating on one task at a time. Only a few years ago reading a book from cover to cover on a rainy day was something you did without a second thought. Now, every minute away from the internet seems like a decade of hopeless isolation. Once experienced, the interconnectedness provided to us by the web is hard to give up. And this is all great because moving into the modern age we need to be capable of multitasking and of processing tons of data from multiple sources at a time. But here comes the scary part.. What would happen if this magical device was suddenly taken away from us?
During the past week, many of us were affected by hurricane Sandy. And while people were losing their belongings, their homes, their lives, many of us were sitting at home losing our minds. Why? Because in a split second we went from hyper-stimulation to no stimulation whatsoever. We went from being completely immersed and interconnected with the world to sitting alone in the darkness. And this was only for a few days. What would our society do if we were suddenly deprived of this connection forever? Would we simply revert to the way things were only several decades ago? Or have our minds evolved to be constantly hungry?
Michelle, I like the question you’re posing here. I think we’ve become so wrapped up in technology that we ignore the real possibility of living without our technologies for an extended period of time. Exploring what our behaviors are now and how they have changed from the time when there was no Internet connection. Our social relationships, our business relationships, much of our information is all located in the World Wide Web. I would think that considering how much of our lives we now place on the web, losing that connection for any period of time would be incredibly stressful and frightening.
I wonder what kind of images and links you will use to compliment your initial question. I think as you get more information and supporting materials, I can post better comments, but hopefully, this is a start!
Love you topic and find it very apropos to my life these past few weeks. I too began to think of all the “whatif’s” associated with technology. What if my whole future was devoid of cell phones and computers? What if I became too dependent on technology? What if I lost connection with the Web-would I still be connected to as many of my friends and acquaintances? I like where you’re going with this and am very curious to see what research you find. Are you implying that our dependency on the technological world is harming us and we should as a result distance ourselves from some of our devices? Or, are you proud of how advanced our society has become with its relationship to the digital age and how our dependency on it is necessary.
Looking forward to your visual ads and articles you post. Love the color scheme you have going with your theme-very subtle and calming. Can’t wait for you to add pictures and links and some pages too!
Love your topic! Looking at technology as an addiction instead of just “the way things are” proves how urgent it is for us to get help. The same way that addicts deny that they have a problem, and can’t imagine life without their substance of choice, we all tend to make excuses for the technology that affects our brains and the way we experience life.
You’re off to a good start (topic-wise) of exploring both our dependence to, and what would happen if we went without, technology. All you need is some more research and more cool graphics, maybe some videos to develop your idea. Also, have you thought of using a header image to instantly tell the reader what you’ll be talking about?
Can’t wait to see how this develops…
-pg