Response to "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

Before I get into anything else, I want to say that this essay by Nicholas Carr was definitely my favorite of the three I've read so far. It interested me the most--so much of what Carr wrote reminded me of the fascinating things I learned about in AP Psychology last year. I just couldn't put it down. Carr had a well-supported idea too--he had at least one quote, study, or new point on every page. Most importantly, though: it was relatable.

After scratching my head all the way through Erdrich's article, I can not tell you how much I appreciated reading about something that pertains to just about every hour of every day of my life; Google has been my best friend longer than any person ever has been. I was anxious to read about something that I rely on so often, especially since the title suggested that this relationship of mine isn't really a good thing. "How could something that is designed to give information make me stupid?" I wondered, not wanting to believe that my closest companion could be doing me wrong. To my extreme dismay, Carr was able to answer this question quite thoroughly in his article. The Internet really has changed me (I thought friends weren't supposed to make you change!), and I really don't like it.

I can't stop thinking about it either. For me, this negative transformation is so evident. I can rarely focus. I get bored with homework. I get bored with reading (at present, I have six books on my bed-side table that I have started and can't get myself to finish). More than anything else, though: I Google, I skim, and I hastily sniff out the one sentence, the one paragraph, the one name, the one date, or the one something else on the web that answers my question. Before reading this essay, I thought that this use of the Internet--the way I can peruse over page after page, navigating quickly through a literal and metaphorical web of information--made my thinking more advanced. I had decided that speed was equivalent to efficiency and effectiveness. The faster I could figure something out, the sooner I could move on to "learning" the next thing and, in turn, the more I could "learn". It took this article to help me see that that's really not the case.

Thanks to Carr's essay, I'm wondering how many things I've actually learned as opposed to temporarily memorized long enough to regurgitate on tests or in papers. I bet there are more of those things than there are pages I've turned in books I've read in the past year. While reading Carr's article, I could most easily relate this learning and cognition of mine to Bruce Friedman's idea of "staccato" quality thinking. I bounce around from phrase to phrase, passage to passage, or site to site, collecting what I need from each, which I think is what Friedman meant when he explained it. However, I think my own "staccato" thinking extends beyond just accumulating the information in that I not only learn in a "staccato" way, I also recall information in a "staccato" way. During a test I bounce around my brain just like I would on the Internet, searching for that one thought that will answer question 43. It's so. . . not how it should be.

I notice this at home too. If I ask my older sister for help with homework questions when she's around, she almost always pulls an encyclopedia or two off the shelf (we have an entire World Book set that I haven't touched in years), flips them open, and looks for everything she can find about the topics I inquired about. She focuses on the entire subject of each question. I, on the other hand, can be found a few feet away, springing from site to site on the Net, looking to find those single pieces of information I need. In the end we both find the answers. She looks them up in books, and I look them up on the Internet. It sounds like a fair trade-off, but after reading this essay, it feels more like I'm having the Net read the books for me. It's like I can't handle reading a few pages in a book about each topic to find my answers. I need search engines like Google to guide me directly to them whereas my sister's search engine is. . .well. . .her brain.

She's thirty-one years old, meaning that just fifteen years ago she was in high school learning how to find the answers she needs. Just fifteen years ago, she learned that to research means to look information up in a book. These days, students like me (because I'm assuming I'm not alone here) have almost completely lost the ability to do this, or at least the desire to. I mean, honestly, how many of us have groaned when told that there's a required number of book sources for a research paper we have to write? How did we come to cast off this resource in just fifteen years? Could I say fifteen one more time? Probably!

All of that being said, I'm going to confess that I have no clue how I'd get by devoid of the Internet. I'm not saying that I couldn't manage without it; I'm just admitting that I've never even considered using something else instead. I use the Net for so much. We use the Net so much. Our AP Composition class is completely connected because of this blog (and I bet we're all Facebook friends too). All of our instructions and materials have to be accessed using the McFarland High School website. And, in all honesty, I used Google seven different times just while writing this blog. (This is probably where I would insert a clip of Brittney Spears singing "Slave 4 U" if YouTube wasn't throwing a hissy fit right now. . .go figure.)

I guess we just have to hope that we can reach a healthy stopping point in this technological expansion. Google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, claims that the company is motivated "to solve problems that have never been solved before," but I think that Mr. Schmidt needs to realize that a big reason why some problems have never been solved before is because they've never been problems before. To me, it seems like half of technological advancement is convincing people that there's something wrong with something they're doing or something they have. While there are things out there that really can be made better with new technology, I think we're going to reach that "enough is enough" point fairly soon if we haven't already. The last thing I want is for Stanley Kubrick's prophecy to come true, and I would hope that I'm not the only one that feels that way.

Response to "Skunk Dreams"

Maybe it was the way Louise Erdrich's ideas jumped around without warning, maybe it was the way her piece seemed to lack a concrete theme--something to connect her many anecdotes, or maybe it was just the noisy teenagers outside my window slamming doors and screeching their tires into the wee small hours of the morning while I was trying to read this essay; whichever of those three (or whichever combination of the three) it was, something about reading "Skunk Dreams" really ticked me off.

It took me way too long to get through this essay. I found myself reading a portion (let's say the one about Erdrich's adult life in North Dakota), moving on to the next (after North Dakota would be the one about New Hampshire), and having to go back to the previous section to make sure I didn't miss the part where she transitioned or things she was referring back to. Turns out that, more often than not, she didn't transition and wasn't referring back to anything (at least nothing I had thought was important enough to be a main idea the first time I read it). A good number of my annotations ended with "WTF, lady?!" I just couldn't see where she was going with the writing.

Honestly, I'm still not totally sure that I understand Erdrich's point in the essay (if she even had one). She would choose to be a skunk? That's about all I can confidently conclude after reading this. There were plenty of times when I thought she was on to something else, but she usually managed to confuse me just a few sentences later. For example, on page 345 she included a large portion about the obstacles involved with getting what we desire in life, how those obstacles often disappear in dreams, and how obstacles can define us when we overcome them. I thought this part was interesting and, in turn, tried to ignore the fact that one of the only times I could relate to what she wrote was when she was quoting someone else. I even gave her credit for bringing up dreams for a third time and for relating back to the obstacle (the fence) from her dream in North Dakota (even though I was still trying to link that back to her skunk experience on the football field). I thought to myself, "Could this be some sort of unifying idea?!"

A person might assume so. . .at least up until page 347 when her newest focus seemed to be on her internal debate about whether Corbin's Park is a blessing (for preserving the land) or a curse (for locking up the wilderness and its animals and seeking pleasure through killing those animals). Though I wondered where the dream theme went, I was totally on board with this Catch-22 idea. I thought maybe Erdrich would finally impress me and go on to say something about being glad for the skunk in the football field because he didn't have to deal with being a resident at Corbin's Park at all. He was free to roam without fences. Without obstacles.

I thought she might also say that discovering Corbin's Park (a place that was very similar to somewhere she visited in a dream that she may or may not have had. . .seriously, I won't go all psychology buff on your hindquarters, but it's very possible that Louise Erdrich has a false memory on her hands) reminded her that we are the ones to decide our obstacles. Maybe I'm being too picky. It's not her fault she doesn't think like me. Still, this idea seemed to make a lot of sense to me because while Louise Erdrich is still deciding how she feels about Corbin's Park, the animals have already shown their contentedness with living there in how they don't try busting out through the flimsy areas in the fence--they don't see it as an obstacle. I guess this wasn't where Erdrich was going with the story considering she didn't touch the idea. . .

The one thing I actually wouldn't hesitate to commend Louise Erdrich on was her incredible way of explaining things. Her word choice was really creative and always painted a perfect picture in my head. If nothing else Erdrich's beautiful way of depicting details was the redeeming quality of her writing. However, it still bothers me that I had trouble finding a common thought among the sections of her essay--as far as I'm concerned, there is nothing other than coincidence linking the author's life in Valley City to the one she had in the Northeast. I know that there are some people out there who are so brilliant that they don't need a unifying idea for their work, but, in my (somewhat harsh) opinion, Louise Erdrich is not one of those people.

Response to "The Talk of the Town"

Prior to reading this essay, I don't think I ever really thought about the controversial issue of gun control. Don't get me wrong--debating contentious topics with others or even with myself always provides for a fun, interesting time, but I'm usually more of a tree-hugging, Fourteenth Amendment-preaching kind o' gal. However, Adam Gopnik helped me recognize that seriously managing the accessibility of guns is just as important to keeping people protected and happy as saving the environment and allowing for equal rights are.

Not only did Gopnik's writing remind me that gun control is a litigious issue (with all the stuff people quarrel about these days, it's hard to keep track. . .), his points also facilitated my concluding that it really shouldn't be. It shouldn't be an issue because, in my opinion, it's outrageous that anyone could argue that it's okay to stay the way we are. Look at what's happened! This situation with guns has gotten way out of hand. Gopnik noted that killers in the United States have been responsible for half of the fourteen worst mass shootings in Western democracies since the 1960's. He also offered three examples of situations in which making gun laws more strict resulted in fewer shootings. How can people say that we don't need to fix anything when the death toll keeps rising AND when making alterations has already been proven effective in other places?

The only way I could see controversy about gun control being okay is if it were in regards to exactly how we're going to change it, not whether or not we should (and maybe that is what the fuss is all about. . .I'm not entirely sure. Like I said, I'm new to this topic.). Gopnik explained that the Virginia Tech shooter was "an obviously disturbed student with a history of mental illness," yet he was still permitted to buy weapons that kill. Why aren't background checks a mandatory part of gun sales (or the sale of any weaponry for that matter)? Why are these guns even available for purchase? If a person wants to hunt, they'll probably want to buy a hunting gun, so why bother selling any other kind to the public? Selling someone a gun that's meant for killing people sort of seems like asking for trouble.

Also, Gopnik brought up the point that people think that "healing" can take place without "treating"-- that immediately after something bad happens is the wrong time to talk about how it can be remedied. I found this idea to be very truthful in that it, sadly, is exactly how a good number of people react. While I understand that grieving is both difficult and necessary, I think that it's somewhat upsetting that one party's sheltered healing disables the prevention of another party's tragedy. It would be nice if more stories like the one Gopnik included about the school shooting in Quebec were made known. In that case the survivors worked together to begin a gun-control movement that eventually led to laws that reduced shooting sprees in Canada. Stories like this might help inspire those affected by misfortunes to try to turn their own negative feelings into positive changes.

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that Susan Sontag certainly managed to smother a good mood with this piece. Though I feel that her negativity may not have been the best thing for her case, she did bring up some good points. I think that it's true that the public really isn't "asked to bear much of the burden of reality." So much of what happens in the world (not just in Iraq) isn't reported to us, and whether or not that really is because American officials and the media work to keep things from us, I agree that it's wrong for a mature democracy to withhold serious information in favor of letting us know things like whether or not the painkiller Demerol really was the cause of Michael Jackson's death. Too soon? My apologies. . .

I also found Sontag's writing a little hard to understand. I am quite possibly the world's biggest fan of long sentences and even I was finding some of hers a little overwhelming. Maybe I was just having a rough day, but while I felt like her word choice was very sophisticated, I also found it a little condescending. Of course, that's not to say that Susan Sontag is not a great, reliable writer; there's absolutely nothing wrong with strong word choice. Aside from the depressing quality to her piece, Suzie did some nice work in her portion of this essay.

an introduction of sorts. . .

Okay. . .I have been snooping around on all of your blogs for the past hour or so (pardon my creeping) and I'm starting to get the feeling that I'm supposed to come up with some things about me to post in (on?) my blog. While I'd like to argue that there isn't anything worth posting, something tells me that I should probably just get it done. So, here it goes.

My name is Alison Carollo, but I've always been called Ali. I've never thought that I looked like an Alison. Like most of you, I will be a senior this year, and the thought of that is a little daunting to me. Actually, no. . .it's terrifying. I'm so excited for my experience at a university to be everything McFarland hasn't been, which results in my getting a wee bit nauseous every time I hear the word "college." Of course, I'm a world-class over-reactor, so please don't let my insecurities and distorted perceptions of reality impact how you feel about your futures.

Anyway, writing things like this is always a bit difficult for me because I can never think of anything that seems interesting enough (or normal enough--see above for proof!) to write about. I think I’ve always been a relatively shy person, though I don’t know that many people would describe me as such. In fact, at present, I can't think of anyone that would vouch for this self-bestowed label. How sad it is that I'm surrounded by people who mistake insanity for confidence? I'm kidding (mostly). Labeling people is dumb anyway. Labels are for filing systems and canned produce.

Alright, I need to be more serious considering a good portion of the last paragraph had nothing to do with me. Let's see. . .I’m fairly certain that college (cue queasiness), grades, and success in general are the things I think about most. It's a little sad but it's just how I am.

On the very rare occasions that I manage to get my mind off of doing well in life, I usually find myself realizing just how strange I must seem to the people around me. I often use exaggerated arm gestures and almost indescribable noises to compensate for my frequent inability to express myself verbally. For example, when I get excited, I typically forget that my limbs bend and am known for making "the noise." (If you're not familiar with it, you will be by the time this class is over. However, if you want to be ahead of the game, you're going to need to watch (and appreciate) this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFKFyzP34lc)

I like some alternative and rock music but would much rather sing along (badly) with songs from countless musicals I’ve seen or am dying to see. Current obsession: In the Heights. I also want to see the world, especially Europe, but, more importantly, I want to save the world from so many things, a few being discrimination of any kind, killing of the environment, animal cruelty, hunger, war, and overpriced jeans.

Also, if you haven't noticed by now, I am quite partial to parenthesis and the color purple.