I find the notion that the Internet is making us dumb a paradox in which the many different facets of the issue culminate to create a whirlwind of confusion. I tend to disagree on the fact that the Internet is making us “dumb”. It may be making us lazier, or fatter, but not dumber. The argument that the easily accessible wealth of knowledge available on the Internet is corrupting our brains and in turn causing idiocy seems a little extreme. The underlying problem is not whether the Internet is making us dumb, because the capacity of the human brain will never change, it’s how the Internet is changing the way we view and store knowledge. Nicolas Carr, writes in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, “My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.”
The Internet has not changed our mental capacity, merely the way we process information. But, hasn’t changing technology always done that throughout history? The written word changed the way we stored knowledge, and with every advance in technology since that point has increased the efficiency in which knowledge is spread. In addition to the way we stored knowledge, these advances changed the way we view knowledge. We’ve become increasingly ADD and this due in part to the medium in which we view, and document our lives. In the past the human brain has been compared to work like a clock, now we say the human brain works like a computer. So, in reflection, if anything the Internet is making us smarter, not dumber. It may be changing the way we think, but who can say this is a bad thing? I guess time will tell.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
“The Rising tide of mediocrity”
Abstract
“Reading a book requires a degree of active attention and engagement. Indeed, reading itself is a progressive skill that depends on years of education and practice. By contrast, most electronic media such as television, recordings, and radio make fewer demands on their audiences, and often require no more than passive participation. Even interactive electronic media such as video games and the Internet, foster shorter attention spans and accelerated gratification. To lose such intellectual capabilities—and the many sorts of human continuity it allows—would constitute a vast cultural impoverishment.” (http://www.nea.gov/pub/RaRExec.pdf).
Edward Jones was bored. He sat in a classroom he didn’t want to be in. He starred blankly at the back of his instructor’s greasy, semi-balled head. He yawned. He rummaged through his black, north face backpack, His fingers wrapped around the smoothly metallic, cold skin of his favorite ipod. One earbud. Then the other. Then, he was dead.
Doodles riddled his notebook. Blankness ravaged his brain. Looking down at his English textbook he evaporated. But it wasn’t the story behind the words. It wasn’t found in the pages in front of him. It was something else. He imagined himself in his cushy swivel chair, sitting in front of his top of the line, personal computer, monster in one hand, mouse in the other, ready to do battle. His mind convulsed with excitement. Aroused thoughts sparked his longing for the upgrade he was about to receive. His character grew in front of his eyes. He lived for upgrades. His lust for respect had brought him to this perfectly mundane life, living inside the experience machine. There he fought without painful repercussions. Rebirth was common there. Birth. Growing. Death. Rebirth. Growth. Everything inside there is arbitrary.
Data stream of consciousness. Constant ones and zeros.
His iphone vibrated. Edward woke up. Edward’s alarm always went off on these days. Time to go home. Edward thought everyone hated him. He would slink around barely behind the scenes. His attempts to socialize always ended in failure, or worse. As time past, his delinquency fast forwarded. He finally took refuge in the one place he felt at home. The mothering nurturer. The fountain of knowledge. The future of our deaths. Lost in some instantaneous stimulus in digital euphoria, he was god. When lost inside, he often liked to pretend his victims where actual, real individuals. The thought of their deaths brought Edward much happiness.
Knock!
Knock!
Edward returned from his cyber consciousness with dislike.
“What do you want?” He screeched.
“Edward! Have some respect! Its your father. Shut up and let me in.”
“No”
After a little pause, Edward thought better about the situation, reluctantly got up to open the door, and walked back to his computer, uninterested. His father sat down on his son’s bed, and played with his fingers.
“What are you doing there son”.
“Playing The Great Experience Machine”. Robotically responded Edward.
“That sounds fun”.
Edward became lost again and left his father with his fingers.
“I have something to give you. My father gave it to me when I was your age, so I thought it’d be appropriate to pass it on to you.
Edward’s father paused in attempt to conjure some sort of response.
Click, click click click click click
“I know how much you like those fantasy games so it thought it’d be perfect, because this is one of the greatest, epic adventures ever written.”
Click click click click click click click click.
No words
“I can see you’re busy. I’ll just leave this here for you. Enjoy.”
Edward’s father gingerly set his father’s book on Edward’s pillow, got up, left the room, and shut the door.
Edward twitched, stopped playing, and picked up his book.
Post Script
“…our faith in positive social and cultural change was not misplaced.”
“Cultural decline is not inevitable.” (http://www.arts.gov/research/ReadingonRise.pdf)
“Reading a book requires a degree of active attention and engagement. Indeed, reading itself is a progressive skill that depends on years of education and practice. By contrast, most electronic media such as television, recordings, and radio make fewer demands on their audiences, and often require no more than passive participation. Even interactive electronic media such as video games and the Internet, foster shorter attention spans and accelerated gratification. To lose such intellectual capabilities—and the many sorts of human continuity it allows—would constitute a vast cultural impoverishment.” (http://www.nea.gov/pub/RaRExec.pdf).
Edward Jones was bored. He sat in a classroom he didn’t want to be in. He starred blankly at the back of his instructor’s greasy, semi-balled head. He yawned. He rummaged through his black, north face backpack, His fingers wrapped around the smoothly metallic, cold skin of his favorite ipod. One earbud. Then the other. Then, he was dead.
Doodles riddled his notebook. Blankness ravaged his brain. Looking down at his English textbook he evaporated. But it wasn’t the story behind the words. It wasn’t found in the pages in front of him. It was something else. He imagined himself in his cushy swivel chair, sitting in front of his top of the line, personal computer, monster in one hand, mouse in the other, ready to do battle. His mind convulsed with excitement. Aroused thoughts sparked his longing for the upgrade he was about to receive. His character grew in front of his eyes. He lived for upgrades. His lust for respect had brought him to this perfectly mundane life, living inside the experience machine. There he fought without painful repercussions. Rebirth was common there. Birth. Growing. Death. Rebirth. Growth. Everything inside there is arbitrary.
Data stream of consciousness. Constant ones and zeros.
His iphone vibrated. Edward woke up. Edward’s alarm always went off on these days. Time to go home. Edward thought everyone hated him. He would slink around barely behind the scenes. His attempts to socialize always ended in failure, or worse. As time past, his delinquency fast forwarded. He finally took refuge in the one place he felt at home. The mothering nurturer. The fountain of knowledge. The future of our deaths. Lost in some instantaneous stimulus in digital euphoria, he was god. When lost inside, he often liked to pretend his victims where actual, real individuals. The thought of their deaths brought Edward much happiness.
Knock!
Knock!
Edward returned from his cyber consciousness with dislike.
“What do you want?” He screeched.
“Edward! Have some respect! Its your father. Shut up and let me in.”
“No”
After a little pause, Edward thought better about the situation, reluctantly got up to open the door, and walked back to his computer, uninterested. His father sat down on his son’s bed, and played with his fingers.
“What are you doing there son”.
“Playing The Great Experience Machine”. Robotically responded Edward.
“That sounds fun”.
Edward became lost again and left his father with his fingers.
“I have something to give you. My father gave it to me when I was your age, so I thought it’d be appropriate to pass it on to you.
Edward’s father paused in attempt to conjure some sort of response.
Click, click click click click click
“I know how much you like those fantasy games so it thought it’d be perfect, because this is one of the greatest, epic adventures ever written.”
Click click click click click click click click.
No words
“I can see you’re busy. I’ll just leave this here for you. Enjoy.”
Edward’s father gingerly set his father’s book on Edward’s pillow, got up, left the room, and shut the door.
Edward twitched, stopped playing, and picked up his book.
Post Script
“…our faith in positive social and cultural change was not misplaced.”
“Cultural decline is not inevitable.” (http://www.arts.gov/research/ReadingonRise.pdf)
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Some Noise
I have become increasingly intrigued with the website opsound.com. They call the bringing together of sounds and music a “sound pool”. I was curious to see how one uploaded a song to the website so I did just that. The site declares that, “All material for the sound pool will be released under a Creative Commons license (the "Attribution-ShareAlike license"), a copyleft license in the spirit of open source software license which allows for all kinds of copying, remixing, use, and reuse while retaining an attribution to the original artist.” I clicked on the link and it lead me to another site entitled “Creative Commons”. It basically said that by the terms I’m agreeing to, I’m free to share and remix as long as everyone on the site is cool with it. Fair enough. I then thought it prudent to peruse the Creative Commons website, but found to my dismay that in order to get to the good content I had to donate 25 bucks, which every college student may agree it might as well be 1000. Sigh. Anyway, back to the story about uploading my music to this sound pool. I had to provide a name for the band, an email address, a song title, and a URL. This gave me a little frustration; because I was under the influence I could upload my song directly from my computer. Ah well. Lucky for me I have a musician’s page on MySpace which has been dormant for at least 9 months. Despite my twinge on anger I entered my MySpace URL and song name into the required fields and voila, one of my songs is now available to a number of artists to listen to and remix. If anyone is curious to see if this experiment worked you may go to the website and search the band name IJP, that’ll be me.
As a little bit of a post script to this blog I attempted to download Amplive’s remixes of Radiohead’s In Rainbows (after watching that film on copyright in class), and to my dismay every time I tried to do so I got an error message. It is my belief that corporate lawyers finally got the best of him and he was forced to take it off the internet. I hope this wasn’t Radiohead’s doing. If anyone has information on this please respond.
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