GOOGLE AND AMERICAN LITERACY

In 2008, Nicholas Carr posed the question, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. Throughout his position paper on the issue, Carr points out the good and bad the Net has on our literacy. *SIDENOTE* I found it interesting that Carr spent a bit explaining his lack of attention for lengthy reads (that even a 2 or 3 paragraphs in a blog loose his full attention) but, then writes this 7 page argument and expects everyone else to be able to get through it. Nicholas Carr implies that he feels Google is making us stupid. He claims that with technology we are not able to “interpret text” or “make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction”.  When Carr wrote this article he referred to the fact that newspapers started to give the snippet of an article so that readers could at least get the gist without having to read a lengthy the whole text. I find it interesting that now newspapers are starting to disappear all together. Everything is online and everything we do confers back to the way we use the Internet such as “power browse”. On the other hand, he shows that previously people had thought that writing would fill people with “the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom”. This idea shows that not accepting the new ways of communication per say could limit a society in the achievements they could be making. Finally, Carr ends his lengthy position by stating, “As we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence”. So while there are some downfalls to the Internet, Carr agree to disagree that while the Internet may be dumbing us down a bit, it certainly is explicitly unavoidable.

Chris Hedge defines literacy as the ability to be an intellectual and informed citizen of the US. Hedge critiques America because we crutch our citizens at their literacy level. He is suggesting that rather than come down to the level of the illiterate, which is the American way (a quick fix), we should improve the literacy of our country. Hedge refers to our time as the “post-literate world”. Rather than reduce campaign ads to slogans costing millions of dollars, that money should instead help educate the population so that we live in an efficient and educated world.

Hedge and Carr’s critiques are a bit different. While Carr is stating ‘this Internet Age is the world we live in, yes it has its downfalls but it is just another chapter in the book’, Hedge is taking that critique and analyzing it a bit further. This information/Internet Age has possibly reduced our level of literacy and/or doesn’t help improve our current literacy rates. Hedge has a much more serious approach than Carr. Hedge’s critique takes Carr’s to the next level, it answers the “so what?” question. Carr puts it out there that the world is reliant on computers, which are constantly limiting our attention span and ability to process deep texts and Hedge takes that idea and puts it into perspective with stats and strong statements about the serious reality this illiteracy is causing Americans (i.e., not understanding credit card agreements or equity lines of credit and unable to eat in sit down restaurants).