Is technology affecting our cognition?

[Βyakuya]

Here's some food for thought YCM can have.

 

After reviewing Nichola's Carr's article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", it occurs that while the beneficiary uses of technology has become more available and widespread, people have been using it mostly for gratification in gaining instant information. It's very clear that software designers are making everyday conveniences to make the difficulty of searching through pages to find what you want, pretty much long gone. These engineers have the capacity to learn about what common users will be doing and create "shortcuts" in order to allow a normal user to get a quick hash of abstracts people would like to know and instead get superficial amounts of insight and acquired knowledge. In the end, doing something like a research project or looking at a news article might not be able to invoke enough patience in the normal layman and might remove themselves from immersing into academic reading, analysis, and afterthoughts.

 

But from my standpoint, it is an interesting article from an interesting author and debater, even if it is from 2008. But it does bring thought that as technology grows to fit each and everyone of our needs, the effort in trying to find something is no longer a need, because instead of searching and immersing through narratives of text and gaining insight and wisdom, people now just want to skim and reap through a source and thus are likely to be a little more ignorant than they used to. But then it could be brought down that this is the complete opposite, and there are definitely those who are not ignorant and use the Internet to their advantage and broaden heir minds. It's something Google wanted to do when they released the biggest, accessible hub of information that can be used anywhere, possibly in the palm of your hand. but Carr thinks not, and indeed claims it's making us stupid.

 

It's not just about if robots can take our jobs now. It's now about if robots than think for us too. Thoughts?

[Dad]

Reserving this post as it's a great topic.  Will be back to edit within twenty minutes.

 

So, I think that the advancement of technology as a whole has both greatly benefited and harmed man-kind.  We have many great conveniences.  From being able to contact a loved one from across the world, to applying for jobs.  And in that same sense, the amount of harm we bring to one another is also drastically increased.  Our weapons are powerful, and people are being massacred in seconds.  Wars are seconds from happening with the push of a button.  But as far as making us dumber, I tend to disagree with that for the most part.

 

I would say however, that technology has definitely made us lazy.  The fact that we don't have to dig through thousands of pages of hundreds of resources and we can narrow it down to a simple Google Search is astounding, if not scary.  I'm not afraid to admit though, that technology may be accelerating at a pace that we as people won't be able to handle.  A.I. is here, it is a reality.  And if we don't control it, we'll go from being lazy to being obsolete.  That is a possibility.

[Yasυ]

"Durrr it's easy, therefore it's bad"

 

I don't think there's anything wrong with making information more accessible to everyone, I do see why it might present a problem to students and professionals in training, but for the average person this sort of thing is really cool. 

 

Though I sort of understand this guy, I'll probably be as salty as him when in the future people start injecting knowledge directly into their brains, lol. 

[epicmemesbro]

I think technology improved mine. I have become more organized with the simplicity of using a computer, and learning new information. Of course this has made me a tad lazier. In terms of spelling and proper grammar I wasn't really affected. I know of some who say lol irl as well as using slang in writing but I haven't really done that. When it comes to finding information for academic purposes I don't use google, I use journal databases.

[Fusion X. Denver]

I'd say Dad's right in that technology isn't making us dumber, but definitely lazier. I am capable of doing deep research if I need to, but I'd definitely rather not and I'll take any shortcut that I can. I guess you could argue that evolving technology will make it easier for people to take any available shortcuts they can. But I'd rather have those cons than not have the pros technology brings us. I like that I can look up a quick fact mid-conversation or quickly resolve something.