In my personal experience, Socrates’ argument that writing makes people not remember things is untrue. When I study or prepare essays, I find that writing the material or my ideas down beforehand makes it easier for me to remember and is helpful in gathering my thoughts. Socrates also contradicts himself while speaking to Phaedrus. He first states, “for this invention of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.” (Phaedrus, 96). He later on says to Phaedrus, “or he will write them down as memorials against the forgetfulness of old age” (Phaedrus, 98). At first Socrates argues that writing things down creates forgetfulness because people would not be using their memories, but then goes on to say that in old age it prevents forgetfulness to write these memories down.
I believe Plato writes about a different view on writing to show there can always be positives and negatives to new inventions, even as simple as the alphabet, even if he himself is a writer. Even though writing has helped develop the human race in endless ways, Plato may have wanted to show that there could be a downside to even the greatest of invention such as the alphabet. I believe he also contradicted himself in writing, “Phaedrus”, to have people question and think about the reasons of why he would do such a thing.
I both agree and disagree with Nicholas Carr’s argument about the Internet. I see the reasons to be worrisome that the Internet is changing how we think. He states how he becomes easily distracted and unable to concentrate as well as he could before (Is Google Making Us Stupid, 1) and I can relate to this concern of his. I used to read books when I was younger and get sucked in, but now I can hardly read an article without being distracted at least once. I also notice myself skimming more so than carefully reading. On the other hand, the Internet growing has many positives such as medical advances or helping scientific discoveries. If anything, we learn and absorb more knowledge because we have all information at our fingertips. With this information, we have the ability to make our own conclusions about what we have read. Even if the Internet has changed the way we think, I don’t believe it’s for the worst. I believe it’s our brains adapting to this new technology. Going back to the creation of the alphabet having pros and cons, the growing Internet does as well.