Technology changing the world for better or for worse?

In the excerpt called Hal and Me, I feel as though the author is conflicted. He’s struggling to get back into one of his favorite old habits, reading, since he can’t concentrate as well anymore. He believes that the internet has changed the way we think due to its ability to allow us to quickly receive information and skim pieces of reading to find the information that’s most relevant to us, which has led to the loss of patience it takes to sit down and read a long text. For example, the quote stating, “Sitting down and going through a book from cover to cover doesn’t make sense. It’s not a good use of my time, as I can get all the information I need faster through the Web” (p. 9). We now do the activities in our daily lives differently, and we’ve become so accustomed to doing things this way that it seems almost “old fashioned” and unnecessary to do it any other way. Although the author acknowledges and enjoys how the internet gives people access to so much information and enabled him to share his work with the world, he still wasn’t convinced it’s the best thing for our society because he felt “the way his brain seemed to be changing” and this worried him. At first, he believed this was just because the technology was new and exciting, but after a while he noticed he almost craved time spent at his computer. He noted how easy it is to become obsessed with the connectedness the internet allows us to feel, but worries about the need we feel when one is separated from the technology we’re so accustomed to.

In Smarter than You Think, the author used chess to express their ideas. He explained how computers think faster than humans because they have the capability to run through endless moves before picking the one that would lead to the best outcome, where it would be almost impossible for a human to do that which is changing us for the better. However, they do acknowledge how humans have the psychological aspect which also provides an advantage to knowing what move to make. Knowing this, chess players created the Centaur which was the name for the collaborative effort of combing computer’s and human’s skills. This gave the chess player the ability to focus on and enjoy the game more because it took out some of the stressful thinking about which move to do next. The author related this story to his idea about how new technologies, shape the way we think and what we think (p.7). When we become so accustomed to the new and easier ways of doing things, we begin to push ourselves away from the old methods.