The "Merge" of People and Computers

People in today’s world are so caught up in their appearances and knowing news right when it happens that they prove just how much these technological machines are affecting us. On page 213 of The Shallows, Carr states “there’s another, even deeper reason why our nervous systems are so quick to ‘merge’ with our computers. Evolution has imbued our brains with a powerful social instinct, which…entails ‘a set of processes for inferring what those around us are thinking and feeling.’”  Although I disagree with many points Carr makes, this one stands out as understandable and relatable.

In many instances people care about what people around them are thinking and feeling especially when it is about them. Today, everyone cares about how they look, act, and how they are perceived. Although computers cannot feel anything they are often described with personifying words. This may give people the illusion of computers relating to them which causes the “merge”. They become dependent on these machines and ultimately begin acting as one; for example when a person can never be without his or her phone, the “merge” has already happened as the person and phone are attached and viewed together.

Another way this quote can be interpreted is because of the relatively recent uprising in social networking over the past few years. Everyone believes they need to be up to date on all the gossip and goings on of their peers. This false need has become so important to people that they even constantly text or check Facebook while driving. What is so important on Facebook right now that will not still be there in ten minutes when you park? Absolutely nothing is so important on a website that it cannot wait. This backs up the previous argument because it proves even more so how people rely on their phones and have formed special attachments to them. Also it proves that some even value the phones abilities and gossip over their own lives and those lives they put in danger by not paying attention while driving.

Not everyone’s brains “merge” so easily with computers either. It seems that those born in this technological boom have more computer skills and abilities than those born earlier, before the Internet reign was introduced. However, those people, also, are not as dependent on computers and being up to date on gossip as today’s youth. As Carr has mentioned a few times in The Shallows, as new skills are learned, others are lost; for people with no interest in computers, they will keep these skills, while others will go on without ever even knowing those specific skills existed because their computer always did it for them.

I just got an iPhone and I enjoy it and find it very useful, however it would be hard to say that I depend on it. Computers and phones nowadays make it too easy to find information that it takes all the fun out of curiosity and finding things out by yourself. People I know are so lost without their smart phones and too me it is annoying and pathetic that they cannot go a day without it. For example, the calculator is useful when multiplying complicated numbers but for “9 + 6”, seriously you should know that. I am also starting to agree that recent technology is making people dumber because I do believe that we are losing essential skills, or what used to be essential.

-Kim Fairweather