Is Google Making America the Illiterate?

As a human race, people have been known to create technology and seek advancements throughout all of time. With the invention, mass production, and dominance of computers in the twentieth century, I believe that humans have reached a new level of invention and knowledge. In his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr suggests Goggle’s ability to provide vast amounts of information in little to no time has caused people to rely and resort to its fast pace. People try to operate their minds at high-speeds like computers and result in the way they are today. Carr describes the event in the following manner, “It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins.” The results of this are shorter attention spans, tendencies to skim, failures to read books, and others as reported in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Also, Carr suggests that Google along with other fast moving industries wants people to move quickly on the internet as view as many sites as possible because it is in their financial interest.

Chris Hedge discusses the statistics of illiteracy in adults in America in his column called “America the Illiterate.” A large population of America is illiterate causing them exist in what Hedge called a “non-reality belief system.” Millions of the people who are deemed as illiterate received schooling and it is a bewilderment that some even obtained a high school diploma. The lack of reading creates a sense of venerability and gullibility to those who are practiced literates such as politicians. Hedge explains that political campaigning doesn’t require “cognitive or self-critical skills” because “[campaigns] cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia.” Americans choose to live a life that is filled with dishonesty and they embrace this dishonesty from politicians and technology. Although he supports his statements with evidence, I am not so sure that people simply choose not to think because it feels good.

The connection between Carr’s article and Hedge’s column pertains to fact that people in a society have a tendency to follow trends without question. Whether the trend is voting for a political figure for so and so reason or trying to do everything on a computer, people initially partake in a trend because it is easy. However, a reliance starts to form and people forget how to be independent again.