In his essay Is Google Making Us Stupid? Carr illustrates the “cathedral-like” people of our society, with strong, driven, and thoughtful minds, like the intricate etched pillars of a beautiful cathedral. However, these kinds of people may soon be lost as technology advances. I think that Carr’s fear of us becoming “pancake people” is real, and something that I also have seen and felt. Not only in my schoolwork, but also in my day-to-day life, but I do believe that it is a spectrum. I don’t think that anyone wants to become a “pancake person”, but in a world where technology and the internet is available at everyone’s fingertips, it feels as though it’s almost inevitable. The internet has given us shortcuts as people, which slowly chip away at these pillars that we have put up as “cathedral-like” people.

Having access to any information, the answer to any question, the findings of any study right at our fingertips is a lot of responsibility to put on anyone. While it can be extremely helpful to have all your questions answered, it can also be worrisome. You have access to all the good, but also all the bad that lies within the internet, and in the world. In a way, having access to anything at any given time takes away from the human experience. It leads people to worry about what could happen, instead of living in the moment. I don’t think that everyone is meant to have the answers to everything right at their fingertips, because we become much more authentic people when we go out and find our own answers. Having to think about and experience something, rather than just being able to look It up, is something that I would have never thought that I would have come to appreciate as much as I do now. The shortcuts that technology and the internet have granted us have made us less informed and thoughtful individuals, since we don’t have to put so much thought into what we do. I feel as though we’ve become lazy as people, and it’s begun to affect the standards that we hold ourselves to. With the emergence of AI like ChatGPT, we don’t have to put any effort whatsoever into our work. Instead, we can rely on technology to do the thinking for us, which is where those “cathedral-like” pillars really begin to collapse.

I think that Carr offers an interesting perspective when it comes to how we are becoming pancake people, and I find that I agree with it to an extent. I’ve grown up with technology my entire life, and it’s something that other people in my generation have always been exposed to. Everyone has their own relationship with technology and their own experiences, so I feel like everyone has a different idea of what a pancake person is, and it shows itself on different levels. Not everyone is going to be completely robotic and flat like a “pancake person”, and not everyone is going to put a deep level of thinking and analysis into every little thing they read like a “cathedral person”. As human beings, we have different layers to ourselves, and nobody is going to be a hundred percent of one thing or another. With that being said, I do think that people can absolutely have “pancake” tendencies that they don’t want to admit, or that they don’t even realize. Since this is the only reality, we have ever known, many people might not realize if they are becoming flat, or robotic or too reliant on technology.

I’ve found that in my writing, I sometimes feel like a “pancake person” when I’m using my computer to write instead of a pencil and paper. While both a pencil and my laptop are pieces of technology, I find that using my laptop makes my writing feel flatter. I feel like I have to put so much more thought into my writing when I do it by hand, which is not necessarily a bad thing. My writing tends to come out so much more authentic and more human when I take the extra time and effort to write by hand. When I’m writing by hand, everything flows out of my mind and onto the paper so easily. I feel so connected to my work when I can reach out and feel the indents that my pencil made on the paper. Writing on my laptop just doesn’t give me that same satisfaction. It makes my writing feel like a chore instead of an experience. I take a lot of pride in the work that I create, and my favorite part of my work is the experience and the journey I go through with it.  

With all this being said, I absolutely do believe that technology is an excellent and important tool that I, and many others, use in our everyday lives. Specifically with my personal relationships, I think that technology is an excellent tool. I have friends that live hundreds and thousands of miles away, and with the emergence of technology, I can talk to them whenever I want. Sending a text or having a phone call is so simple nowadays, and it helps me to maintain my connections with other people that live far away.