Forcing Opinions

Throughout the book The Shallows, Carr states many opinions that he has about computers and the mind and how us humans are evolving to rely on the computer instead of learning without technology. He states many times in various ways how our minds adapt to the easy the Internet overcomes accessibility of the Internet and how it makes our brains. Throughout the book many times I have disagreed with Carr’s statements. At the ending part of Carr’s book on page 214 he states that “We program our computers and thereafter they program us. Even at a practical level the effects are not always as beneficial as we want to believe.” I think this quote states a lot about what Carr is trying to say throughout the book but I can’t say that I agree with it. I think that both the computer and our brains program to each other but not always are the affects not as beneficial as we think. Often times human beings will disregard the affects certain things have on our minds almost in a certain wait of trickery to our brains in other words things are not necessarily what they seem or many people tell ourselves something so many times that we begin to actually believe it. I think a lot of what Carr is saying in this statement is a form of that. Yes many of the effects are not beneficial but there are also some effects that are very beneficial.

I think often times Carr put his opinions on you to make you reflect and ponder the affects that the Internet has on or brains. He shows his views on page 224 one of the last pages of his book he says that “The seductions of technology are hard to resist and I our age of instant information the benefits of speed and efficiency can seem unalloyed, their desirability beyond debate. But I continue to hold out hope that we wont go gently into the future our computer engineer and software programmers are scripting for us.” He is claiming that the computer engineers and people who create new technology already have a planned set out future. I disagree also with this opinion he is trying to place on us because I don’t necessarily think that all these creators f websites and computers are planning out a future. As humans beings we create what we want to do and how we want to do it. Using computers we decide how we let the computer affect us and how much significance and time it has on our lives. Yes a lot of us are using the computers more and more and allowing it to have a create significance on our lives but we cant also believe the things Carr is stating because many times he is forcing our opinions. We create our own future, not the computers. We decide how much we want to let technology and computers have an affect on our lives and it is us who decides what our future is going to be like.

Salena Zona