Shelby Budzko

ENG 110

Jesse Miller

Project 1, Part 2

              In reading Nick Carr’s essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” I was opened to a whole new perspective on the effects that technology has on not only myself, but humanity as a whole.  As I was introduced to the “cathedral like” people we once were, and the “pancake people we’re becoming, I found that I understand and relate to what Carr was illustrating. He brought forth an idea that we are becoming flat and robotic as people, letting technology do the work for us, and sitting back as it takes over virtually every aspect of our lives. While reading the responses that my classmates had to Carr’s essay, I found that both Jacob Osmer and Mia Lucci had both similar thoughts and feelings towards technology as Carr has. However, both writers offer a unique perspective and their own unique experiences that aren’t touched on in Carr’s essay.

              Technology is affecting everyone, whether it’s in the form of deep reading, writing, or something entirely different. With our advancements in technology, “skimming” while reading has become a lot more prevalent in our society, rather than the deep reading and intense thinking that we used use. It’s easy to put the blame on people simply becoming lazy, which would certainly be part of it, but also technology has wired us to prefer short form content. Especially with the presence of social media, you can get the entire gist of a story in five or six sentences, or in a 30 second clip. This rewiring of our brain makes deep reading feel like a chore, or an almost impossible task to achieve when everything else we consume is short form. In his essay, Carr lets the reader in on his own difficulties with deep reading and understanding, claiming that the internet has changed the way that his brain wants to take in and process information, which is why he has become a “guy on a Jet Ski” rather than his former “scuba driver” in the “sea of words” (Carr 2). I particularly love comparison that Carr makes between a scuba diver and a jet ski when viewing reading as an ocean, because it puts into perspective how skimming truly varies from true reading, because you’re not going as deep with skimming, and you aren’t putting in the effort to get there. Carr also connects his own experience with Bruce Freidman, a blogger that he follows. In his blog, Freidman explains how for him, deep reading has become scarce in his everyday life, and how now “a blog post of three or four paragraphs” is too much for him to fully read, so instead he “skims it” (Carr 2). Osmer points out Friedman’s struggles with deep reading in his essay as well, and even relates it back to his own experiences with skimming and the lack of deeper understanding and connection in his own reading, just like Freidman and Carr. I find the connection between Carr and Osmer here very interesting, because they are writers from very different generations, different backgrounds, and they both have different experiences growing in the age of technology. However, they both report on feeling the same effects of technology as Friedman has. I think this brings attention to an important point that I want to make; technology has an impact on the lives of everyone, not just young people who may have had more experience with it. However, not everyone has the same experience with technology.  Lucci explains that while she may experience a difference in her writing, nothing has changed with her reading ability. Lucci explains that while she has noticed a change in the reading habits and attention spans of her close friends, she has “not noticed a change in [her] attention span” and she has no problem with “reading a lengthy article or essay” (Lucci 1). It may seem redundant to add in Lucci’s experience when it differs so greatly from the point I’m trying to make when I talk about everyone feeling the effects of technology. However, I think that including Lucci’s point of view and personal experiences with reading is very valuable in this circumstance because it touches on another important point that I want to make; everybody’s experiences with technology are vastly different. While it does transcend time and generations, that does not mean that everyone is going to feel like a “pancake” with their reading. Osmer and Carr had similar experiences, but that does not mean that Lucci or other people like her must have had the same experience. Lucci may feel the effects of technology in her writing or, but that does not mean that she must feel that same effect in every aspect of her life. Being or feeling like a “pancake” is not something that is completely black and white, but rather a range that people fall on within different ends of the spectrum.

              In terms of writing, both Carr and Lucci bring up an interesting view on how technology has shaped their writing. Both writers use Friedrich Nietzsche as an example of how technology influences writing. In Nietzsche’s case, he used to write by hand, but lost his ability to see right around when the typewriter was introduced, which gave him another chance at being able to write. However, Carr claims that “his already terse prose had become even tighter, more telegraphic,” meaning that his already tense use of language and writing had become even more strained, and almost like that of something that would have been produced by technology (Carr 3). Switching from handwriting to a typewriter had completely changed his entire writing style, which many other people also relate to when comparing handwriting to using a computer. Lucci uses this example in her writing by incorporating it into her own experiences. Lucci explains her experience with writing, claiming that it makes her wiring reporter like, almost like a robot, and exactly what happened to Nietzsche.

Fit in later?

Osmer also uses Nietzsche as an example in his writing to springboard into his own experiences, but he has a much different opinion. Osmer describes his writing style, explaining how he is “jumping around from paragraph to paragraph, copy/pasting whole sections around the paper, and throwing out as many ideas as possible” which is much easier for him to do through a computer (Osmer 1). Osmer has also seen a change in his writing when using a computer, but it was a positive change. Osmer claims that the way he writes through his computer allows him to be much more thorough and authentic with his writing. Both Lucci and Osmer have very different views, but they both explore the importance of the effects that technology has on our writing. Whether that effect is positive or negative, it is still present in our everyday lives.