Googly Goochie Goo

          I do not think Google is making us stupid, as in googoo-gaga stupid. I think we are smarter, as a people, than we were before, because of the access to such a wealth of information that the internet provides us. Without having to research for long or do our own experiments to learn results, our thinking has time to be taken to another level. But, I do think we feel stupid because we cannot comprehend what is happening to our brains until we have enough research to see and understand it. I was totally thrown off by Carr's note suggesting we might read more now than we did in the 70s and 80s. Yet, I guess that could make sense, seeing the amount of texts I read a day and random technological outlets to short passages I read on a daily basis. That's just it, though, everything I read is shorter. My favorite kinds of books are still picture books, and it certainly takes the perfect kind of focus to get through a novel or longer piece of writing. This is obviously true for others, because of the popularity of blogging, as we have discussed.

          Hedges believes we live in two different types of places. The first is literate, or able to determine lies from the truth in the massive amounts of information we process. He considers the literate a minority, and explains how he thinks the majority of America is fed lies and is “hostage” to brands. My English teacher in 7^th and 8^th grade used to always mock those of us in certain types of clothing. Let’s be real, it was usually Abercrombie, a perfect example (as he claimed) of us acting as walking billboards for companies. I mean it’s not that the shape of a word like Abercrombie is attractive, it’s just that we like the way the clothing fits, or we are just going with the flow of trends. We seem to do that with media, too. I get uncomfortable reading about tragedies and articles about dangers in this world, and yet those are the articles continuously published because people read them out of fear and for entertainment. It’s terrifying to think news companies can have so much power over what we imagine to be the most prevalent problems, but Carr and Hedges both speak similarly about the way we are force-fed information- be it news, researched facts, etc. I feel like things are so drastically different now with the media age that some serious implications will come about for the speed with which our society is changing. The problem is whatever the heck those might be.