Thought-Provoking Technology

The Internet has rapidly become a fundamental medium for individuals to make use of themselves in the pursuit of information. Engines such as Chrome and Google make it easy for users to search out and acquire immediate knowledge about a specific subject. In March 2017, there were 3.74 billion Internet users who made more than 5.5 billion Google searches a day. Internet connectivity and usage continue to expand on a regular basis, and its effect expands in the same proportion. Data has never been as freely available as it is now. Given all the new opportunities at hand, why should the human race ever slow down? A possible explanation may be a shift in the way people think about it. As humans try to take in as much information as possible within an extremely minimum time, there is a corresponding change in the way they interact with others. The lack of empathy and change of the way that people think is becoming more prevalent.
The factor that influences the change in human thinking is the social media. The ability to convey one’s thoughts to thousands of people at once is a compelling concept. Peggy Orenstein outlines how she often finds herself wholly infatuated with Twitter, noticing that even the way she thinks about the things her daughter says has changed. In her article ’I Tweet Therefore I Am,’ she shares the way Twitter is taking over the way she thinks. Besides, she states, ’Each Twitter post seemed to be a tacit referendum of who I am, or at least who I believe myself to be’ (Orenstein 3). As she strives to boost her relevancy and image through Twitter, Orenstein begins to question if her thoughts are genuine or merely a paradigm of what she wishes her Twitter image to be. She makes a great, yet subtle comparison to E.B. White’s book ’The Trumpet of the Swan.’ A voiceless swan learns to use a trumpet to communicate to those around him, quite like the way Orenstein uses Twitter to let her voice be heard to those who otherwise would never be able to listen. Orenstein’s questioning as to whether she is shaping her Twitter, or it is shaping her is a not a unique one. Many people who find themselves caught in the fast-paced and ever-changing world of social media feel the same way. Does this artificial connectedness of social media justify the lack of empathy and skills that many people face today?
Over 1.17 billion, or a third of Internet consumers use Google daily. In his article ’Is Google Making Us Stupid’, Nicholas Carr agrees that social media and the Internet characterize the adverse impact on individuals in a broader spectrum (Carr 3). According to Google’s Chief Executive, Eric Schmidt, ’Google is a company striving to systemize everything.’ The change in the way we search the web directly affects some other daily processes. Bruce Friedman, the blogger writing about the role of computers in the sphere of medicine, states that he is not able anymore to work with a printed article on the one available online (Carr 6). He adds that he has taken a new way of scanning short passages of text from multiple sources online.
In conclusion, one may not know exactly how the Internet is changing people’s minds. Nevertheless, there is evidence that it changes how people operate, be it the struggle to read along, multiple texts, or the way that Twitter is shaping one’s thoughts. The Internet is having an impact on the ways people think. Does this allow to increase productivity and speed as well as improve skills we allow to deteriorate, or are we allowing our dependence on computers to become too strong?

_x005FWorks Cited
Carr, Nicholas. ’Is Google Making Us Stupid?’ The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 27 Apr. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/. Accessed 28 Sept. 2017.
Orenstein, Peggy. ’I Tweet, Therefore I Am.’ The New York Times, The New York Times, 31
July 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/magazine/01wwln-lede-t.html. Accessed 28 Sept. 2017.