I saw a commercial on television for a car. It has a narrator that says if a piece of technology is not moving forward it is moving backwards. Every time i hear that commercial. i think of the Shallows. It is a very true statement. When i first started reading the shallows, I thought Nicholas Carr was merely hating on some of his own favorite inventions that he loves to use himself. How could a man who spent probably thousands of dollars when computers first came out be so critical of the same machines he once loved? Now i see why. I feel like as a part of technology becomes obsolete we become obsolete with it. The other weekend my niece wanted to watch a movie that we only owned on VHS. I stuck in in the VHS player to play. So then why wasn't it playing? I couldn't believe it had taken me several minutes to realize i had put it in the re-winder and expected it to play. I actually forgot how to use a VHS player. i had to laugh at this or else I would have felt so ashamed at myself. I do consider myself a somewhat intelligent person. However i just thought a re-winder was a VHS player. It doesn't even have to be in such grand terms. I went to best buy and was still surprised they were selling video iPods. Something I hadn't for five years. I just went to burger king for the first time in what seems like forever and they have this new high tech soda machine that looks like it would be from the future. It's digital touch screen. When you click on sprite for example it brings up peach sprite, strawberry sprite, vanilla sprite, every sprite under the sun. i never thought I'd see something like that in my life time. Maybe I'm just not into technology, am jaded or am just not a believer. However technology is moving at a faster pace than humans. It"s quite a scary thought. Even if i read the rest of the shallows and don't agree with Carr on much of anything I thick i can agree with him that people should be advancing faster than technology. because A) the people make the technology and B) technology is made to help people.
Kelsey Coughlin
First off this is a really well written and thought out blog entry (I think). Second, I completely agree with you and Carr on this specific topic, it's crazy how out of hand and smart technology has become, and it almost seems like some people are doing the exact opposite. My nana just joined Facebook, not sure why but she’s been on for a few months and still does not understand what to do but she loves it, she sets status as if she’s directly commenting to someone, Obvious she’s older, so that’s not a great example but even so. Some of the technology we upgrade and replace I don’t even really understand why? The new coke machines you’re brought up I've seen a few as well and yes they look cool but didn’t the other machine do the same exact thing? We always just want the next best thing, when half the time it’s just the same thing with a new color. I defiantly understand and agree now from reading the shallows, that people should be advancing faster than technology, to me it seems like logic.
ReplyDeleteBy Allison Saffie