I am a part of the the iPod and iPhone generation. I indeed have both, and I use them quite often. I have found them both useful and a distraction, however many critics of technology have often combined these two together to as away to examine the downfall of mankind. Technology and its dependancy of those that use it have become a developing, and all enveloping, discussion between those that use and those that don't.
I have found that trends today are imbraced and then exploited to the point that there are whole social shifts geared to the use of certain technological advances. Look at the internaet and how it changed the way people researched and learned. With the creation of the internet there needed to be a way to filter out the best sites that best suited your needs and the invention of the search engine was created. Then came the all dominating world according to google. (Read Previous Blog on Google.)
information was being pased on a far more rapid pace and people were learning to decode that information at the same rate that it was given to them. When one is submersed into a digital world where they are subjected to visual (video) stimulation, auditory, stimulation along with the written word, it is hard not to be awstruck by this powerful medium. Learning is now being connected to "experience" in a whole different way. Learning is moving at a quicker pace.
Carr's claim to fame occured when he wrote the "Is Google Making Us Stupid". Here he examines the ease of use of technology as a way to distract us as readers and learners. He, himself feels that he has been a victim of this sway of thinking and feels that with the esae of use the need to remember and be able recall is being lost and therefore people are becoming to reliant on the technology. The reliance then creates a dependant user, rather than and independant thinker.
As a reader of literature it has always been important to me to experience a text through the physical. I need to hold a book in my hands and turn each page independantly. I feel I have a closer attachment to the source material if I am able to incorporate the reading with the writing of notes, a.k.a. the highlighting process, or what educators call the active reading process. I understand that this is because, this is how I learned to read. I also believe that today's students are learning and processing in a differnt way and that way needs to be embraced. In a world that spends a great deal of time viewing itself through the ambient glow of a computer screen, pictures and video are the items that help allow the reader/user to better comprehend news, literature, self- help and educational materials. The digital world is here and it is seeping into every fiber of our being. When "Tweets" now consist of short videos and photographs to help enhance the experience it is no wonder that reading seems to be going the way of the Do-Do.
The world of electronic texts and literature is here. It is overtaking what once used to be a world created by the imaginations of the reader. The reader could carefully construct the setting via the language of the author or imgine the sound of the voice of a certain character, suitable for the emotion that is being experienced at that moment. Today, literature comes in differnt forms and they all seem to be in opposition with eachother.
