Technology: Curse or Blessing?
Technology has been an up and coming breakthrough in our world since the mid 1900s. Every day, we are progressing and creating new ways to make our lives simpler and more efficient. However, with this constant advancement, comes constant speculation. The debate of whether or not technology is beneficial or harmful to our lives and especially to our learning has been around as long as the beginning of technology itself. Some will fight that technology is one of the best creations of mankind due to the fact that everything we could ever need is at our fingertips; one click and done, your question is answered. Nevertheless, others will argue that technology is detrimental to our minds and learning because no one will appreciate the knowledge that is to be learned through hard work instead of taking shortcuts.
This is the debate that both Nicolas Carr and Clive Thompson’s work relates to. Both authors offer pros and cons that technology has brought us. In Nicholas Carr’s project, ‘Hal and me’, he offers evidence to reasons why he believes that technology is a blessing and a curse. With using personal examples and accounts of others, he is able to get his point across that in the end, whether good or bad, technology has a major impact on the lives of so many people. Throughout the reading, it seems as though Carr believes that technology was godsend. It was if over the years, he in a sense, became addicted to using technology. It started off slow, then progressed to the point where he felt “lost without the Delete key, the scroll bar, the cut and paste functions […]”. This is where Carr takes a turn in his writing to show how dependent he had become. By the end of the piece he is a completely different person, saying that he “miss his old brain”. Technology changed the way he thought and was able to perform simple functions like editing a paper. His whole dynamic of learning and observing was changed with one piece of technology. With everything on the internet nowadays, it is very unlikely that you will not be able to find something you are looking for or do something that you need to do. That being said, it is evident that Carr’s claim is correct. People would now rather search for something on the internet to learn about it and simply can through the information given to attempt to get an understanding of the subject. However, what are you really learning by doing this? Shortcuts are what is impairing the learning of so many students and people in general. Why would someone take the time to actually learn a subject when they can just look up what they need?
Although this point seems to be very clear to see, there are still some people who believe that you can’t do any better than our world’s technology. In Clive Thompson’s excerpt ‘The Rise of the Centaurs_’ from his book Smarter Thank You Think, it is evident that he agrees that technology is changing our minds, yet for the good. While offering the opinions of others and addressing that some people do not people that technology is beneficial, is main argument was proved by relating humans to centaurs. The definition of a centaur, in Thompson’s words is “a hybrid beast endowed with the strengths of each”, in this sense, “each”, is referring to the skills and knowledge of both the human mind and computers. By referring to humans as centaurs, Thompson is trying to point out that with technology the human mind can only benefit. Not only will we have the experiences from the world and what we have learned, we will have the knowledge that we haven’t technically learned or experienced yet as well with the help of computers. An example of how Thompson believes computers are beneficial to our learning is with chess. Before technology, children were adequate players because they relied on the experience of past matches to help them make decisions in the future. However, as technology continued to progress, younger players were able to become better and better until the point of which they were exceptional. This was due to the fact that computers allowed them to see moves that they might have not thought of before; broadening their knowledge of the game entirely. To wrap up the piece, Thompson includes the phrase, “the world of infinite memory” to reiterate his opinion of how beneficial technology is to the human race. By using technology, we are expanding our horizons, giving ourselves the opportunity to learn new things every day.
As long as technology keeps evolving, so will the dispute, and maybe no one will ever know the true effects technology has had on us. Although both these authors make excellent points on the matter at hand, it is inevitable that there will continue to be more and new information arising every day that will prove both sides of the case.
