Hey guys! I have just started reading The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, and I actually like it. As generations continue to grow up with the internet, like our own, you never think how it has effected our minds. Moreover we would not truly know because it has always been apart of our lives. I like this book because it is about how people who have grown up and lived without the internet feel about it. I never thought that it would be mind altering because, like I said before, it has always been around! However, if you think about it before the internet people had to do things like go all the way to the library, look for the right book, and then look inside the book to find good information for their research. That required actual work compared to going on the Internet, searching for what you need, and getting it within minutes. Times really have changed.
Anyway as I was reading chapter one, in the beginning Carr kept talking about how the Internet has caused him and others who lived before the Internet to lose their concentration and reflection skills. I find it hard to agree with that. I understand that the Internet can be very distracting and cause you to lose focus, but that is when your will power kicks in. If you know you have an assignment due or you have to get something done, you should be able to buckle down, put all distractions away, and focus. Moreover he said the internet has changed the way he thinks because he is no longer able to deeply reflect like he once was. Honestly if he truly misses his deep reflection skills he should be able to separate himself from all distractions and reflect on whatever he wants to reflect on. I do not know if it is because I am used to the Internet always being there that I am able to ignore it if necessary, but I believe Carr should not use the Internet as an excuse as to why he can't concentrate and reflect anymore. Rather he should use it as motivation to strengthen his ability to concentrate and reflect even with distractions, like the Internet.
affect - effect
ReplyDeleteapart - a part
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Monique, when you get to the sections on the brain and neuroplasticity, you may reconsider your view that distraction is about will power. A certain amount of discipline is needed to accomplish pretty much anything, but Carr's claim is that neuroplasticity makes this a fundamentally different matter. It's not merely a matter of will.
Every teacher knows very well that there are a hundred things competing with our students' attention for the work we want them to do; all of us have to fight this battle. Some are better at it than others. Half of my sleepy students in first and second period are under-slept because they just reached Level 9 in the game they are playing, not because they were working on their differential equations. That's a will power thing. You CAN stop playing the game and focus on your work, or even better -- get some sleep. (Teenagers need lots of sleep.) But what Carr is talking about is even more subtle -- it's internal, it's on the screen, it's knowing that in three quick clicks, I can be somewhere else altogether, looking at something much more pleasing than the work I am trying to accomplish.
Mrs. Fletcher, you were right. When I got to the section about the brain and neuroplasticity, I understood why it was no longer a matter of will. It was not a matter of will because since he began using the Internet more often, the brain map space for his reflection and deep concentration skills were replaced due to underuse. His brain was undergoing what Jeffrey Schwartz called "survival of the busiest". However, it is still possible for Carr to retrain his brain to regain those skills because it " ...doesn't mean that we can't, with concentrated effort, once again redirect our neural signals and rebuild the skills we've lost" (Carr 35). Therefore I guess the matter of will should be whether or not he will put in the time and effort to retrain his brain and get his skills back.
DeleteMonique: I think you have a point in the second paragraph when you discuss putting your distractions aside when you know an assignment's due date is approaching. This may sound strange, but I think that's one of the main (and only) benefit's of procrastinating. When you're under pressure and you know you only have a few days (sometimes even a few hours) to complete an assignment, I think it's a lot easier to put your distractions aside and focus on the assignment. In this case, I know that I still have two months to complete the assignment, which might be a reason it's so hard for me to stay on task.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I do agree that he can't completely blame the internet for his loss of concentration, but it should hold at least a bit of the blame. As you said, it's a lot easier to skim through Google pages to find answers than it is to actually have to focus and look through books. This new ability we have that allows us to get answers without analyzing anything does lead to a change in the way we think, which is why Carr and his friends have trouble reflecting on ideas. Like you said, they could still do it if they wanted to, but it'd be a lot harder because of the way the internet has altered the way we think.
Deadlines are everybody's best friend. Imagine if we never died. We probably would never getting around to doing anything, because we would have all of eternity to finish it up. A hard deadline works wonders.
ReplyDeleteStudents often say, "I do my best work on a tight deadline," and that may be true, but ONLY because they do their ONLY work on a tight deadline.
I have two former students who told me, years later, that they did their entire summer homework on the last day, so out of curiosity, I went back and looked at their scores on the exam: a 2 and a 3. I also have memories of students giving me their notebooks two or three weeks EARLY, most memorably, Juan R. He got a 5, and an A both semesters. That's just the kind of guy he was. He lives in the same world as we all do, with all of the same distractions. He has just taught himself a different way to work, and the work is deep, thoughtful and worth reading.
ReplyDeleteAll rushed work tends to be superficial...maybe good enough to get in the class, but the work rarely rises to a B, and the A is out of the question. It's just obvious.
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ReplyDeleteI found it interesting when you said that we can have the will power to reduce distractions and focus. The tough thing is, many of us would rather be distracted by pleasing ourselves than working. We are living in a generation that grew up with technology and Internet. Like Postman said, technology is our metaphor, which represents our culture today.
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