Does our daily use of technology and tools pose a threat to how effectively our memory functions?
Technology has played a vital role in human progression over the past century, with new advancements like computers, smart phones, and orbiting satellites paving the way for a world more connected than ever before. The ease of accessing knowledge via these devices ensures that individuals can have the world at their fingertips, as any and all questions they may have can be answered in only a matter of seconds. Such a free flow of information requires little mental aptitude to understand and access, and some observers of this relatively new phenomenon are starting to ponder if technology is actually hurting us rather than aiding us. One such
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In an article written in Slate titled “Is Google Wrecking Our Memory”, the cognitive concept of transactive memory is explored in great detail. Transactive memory is the idea that a pair, or even group of humans can divvy up certain bits of information that need to be remembered between themselves so that remembering large amounts of information is a much more accomplishable task. While one person would remember the location of a friend’s home, another person would have the ability to recall specific bits of information about such friend. Studies have supported this concept, as couples who had long been together could collectively remember much larger swaths of information when they were in the same room than if they were all alone (Neyfakh 2013). Our ability to understand what we or other people are skilled at memorizing, which is known as meta-memory, is also very pertinent in humans and works in conjunction with transactive memory. When we utilize this meta-memory, we are likely to discard information that we know others will remember, yet store information that we know cannot be retrieved when communicating with others (Neyfakh
Author Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google making us Stupid,” discusses how the use of the computer affects our thought process. Carr starts out talking about his own experience as a writer and how he felt like “something had been tinkering with his brain, remapping his neural circuitry and reprogramming his memory”(313). Basically, he is acknowledging that since he started using the Internet his research techniques have changed. Carr believes that before he would immerse himself in books, lengthy articles and long stretches of prose allowing his mind to get caught up in the narrative or the
Foer, on the other hand, makes the claim that our society’s ability to remember has slowly dwindled by means of outsourcing of ourselves. “Today, when we live in a deluge of printed words” we have no need to remember everything when we have tools that do it for us (164). We have phones that remember people’s names, addresses, and phone numbers. We have GPS systems that make remembering routes a thing of the past.
When discussing the impact of memory on daily life, Foer explains that “the average person squanders about forty days a year compensating for things he or she has forgotten… everyday there seems to be more to remember…with a memory like Ben Pridmore’s I imagined life would be more qualitatively different--and better”(MWE page 7). This point highlights how important memory truly is. With a poor memory, we struggle with recalling even the simplest of observations and events. In addition, Foer uses confirmation to persuade the reader that having a good memory has positive effects on intelligence, noting that it would make him “…more persuasive, more confident, and in some fundamental sense smarter…” as well as a “better journalist, friend, and boyfriend”(MWE page 7). Finally, through Foer’s use of confirmation, we are brought to the realization that without memory, “our world would immediately crumble”(MWE page 19), especially in a situation where “all the world’s ink [becomes] invisible and all our bytes [disappear]”( MWE pade 19). Foer successfully defends his argument that without textual aids and external means of remembering information, we as a society would lose a vast amount of knowledge solely due to our inability to successfully retain memories. These three pieces of evidence effectively confirm Joshua Foers primary claim that memory is
“With every new innovation, cultural prophets bickered over whether we were facing a technological apocalypse or a utopia” (Thompson 9). This quote states that with every significant break-through with technology, people contemplate whether it will have a positive or negative effect on mankind. Technology allows for external memory sources, connections to databases, and it allow easy communication between people. Thompson then directly counters Carr’s hypothesis and states that “[c]ertainly, if we are intellectually lazy or prone to cheating and shortcuts, or if we simply don’t pay much attention to how our tools affect the way we work, then yes - we become… over reliant” (Thompson 18). In his opinion, “[s]o yes, when we’re augmenting ourselves, we can be smarter… But our digital tools can also leave us smarter even when we’re not actively using them” (Thompson
From communicating with one another to researching for an essay, these high-tech gadgets are constantly being used. Unfortunately this is slowly becoming a danger to the human mind and an individual's ability to carry out simple tasks. This can be shown through the examples in Carr’s novel. He states multiple times that technology is damaging the brain and is struggling to do the simple tasks it should be able to do. Through his multiple examples, it is clear that technology is hurting us because we can no longer contemplate, concentrate, remember certain details, and more. Although, we cannot avoid using technology, we should be mindful of how often we use
The following essay will discuss how the ideas in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, is expressed in the futuristic novel Feed, by M.T Anderson.
With the rise of technology and the staggering availability of information, the digital age has come about in full force, and will only grow from here. Any individual with an internet connection has a vast amount of knowledge at his fingertips. As long as one is online, he is mere clicks away from Wikipedia or Google, which allows him to find what he needs to know. Despite this, Nicholas Carr questions whether Google has a positive impact on the way people take in information. In his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr explores the internet’s impact on the way people read. He argues that the availability of so much information has diminished the ability to concentrate on reading, referencing stories of literary types who no longer have the capacity to sit down and read a book, as well as his own personal experiences with this issue. The internet presents tons of data at once, and it is Carr’s assumption that our brains will slowly become wired to better receive this information.
We live in a time where technology is at the center of our society. We use technology on a daily basis, for the simplest tasks, or to aid us in our jobs, and don’t give a second thought to whether these tools are actually helping us. Writers such as Kevin Kelly and Clive Thompson argue that the use of technology actually helps us humans; whiles writers such as Nicholas Carr argue that technology affects people’s abilities to learn information negatively.
Humans are becoming more technologically-efficient every day. New inventions and innovations are constantly being made. The Internet is becoming more “reliable” every day. However, how much do we really get from the constant advancement of Internet use and smarter technology? Should we look at their contributions to the world as a benefactor or a curse? The common effect of “artificial intelligence” in the technology we use every day is examined by two brilliant authors, Nicholas Carr and Jamias Cascio. In Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, he explains the effects of the Internet and technology in our society and claims that the overuse of technology is dangerous and can affect how our mind operates. Jamias Cascio, on the other hand, uses his article “Get Smarter” to show the positive effects of technology in our constantly adaptive society claims that technology may just be making our society smarter and more efficient. While Carr and Cascio both use the claim of cause in their articles to provide valid points on how technology affects our society, Carr’s article proves to be more effective because it focuses on skeptical-based evidence and uses a variety of appeals and proofs.
However, Carr and Turkle both agree that technology has done good, but it has come at the cost of our ability to think critically. In the two articles, both authors heavily emphasize the negative effects of computer technology on how it is diminishing human cognition and the ability to process information.
Andrea Schlesinger’s, “In Google We Trust” a chapter in her book The Death of Why? The issue is that the internet has changed people and that it may not be a good thing. Google has changed the way that people think greatly, especially in our ability to analyze, understand and know the source of the information we receive from google.
For cognitive neuroscientists who study memory, it is a commonly accepted fact that human memory is imperfect. People regularly forget, misattribute, or confabulate information that is presented to them. In his seminal review, Daniel Schacter (1999, 2002) notes seven sins of memory. However, the three most relevant to this study are insufficient attention, misattribution, and pre-existing beliefs and biases.
Discuss the need for an explanation of human memory, which proposes that memory is a set of stages, rather than a single process.
Memory is the vital tool in learning and thinking . We all use memory in
... we are tuning more to screens and less to people, not only are we getting less practice time and less face-to-face social time, but we’re also hard-wiring the brain to be less adaptable. If we inoculate ourselves to extreme images on screen, it also depletes the brain’s tendency to seek out real-life stimulation. At a very fundamental level, we expect less of our brains now. Because we have so much at our fingertips, we don’t ask our brains to remember the same things, which is what makes our brains robust. “We just don’t see a need to remember as much because it is going to be right at our fingertips. The neurological component of this is that the regions of the brain that we don’t use or that we don’t stimulate end up getting pruned off. And so if we aren’t asking the memorizing portions of our brains to work, those portions will gradually lose their function.”