400-500 Word Draft
The internet is very intricate. It seemingly goes on forever and ever. Do we know just how far the internet can go, just how much it really knows? The internet may be able to do things like trap our attention, suck us in, make us obsessed. And why should we not be? The internet is an incredible source of information that could give us anything we wish for, like an unlimited genie. However, the internet has a dark side. One that many people do not often want to think or talk about. Two people that are talking about it, and often, are Sherry Turkle and Nicholas Carr. Turkle is a clinical psychologist with a joint doctorate in sociology and personality psychology from Harvard. She also teaches at MIT and is the author of “The Empathy Diaries” along with multiple other works. Sherry does her best to spread the realization that the hold that technology has on us is negatively affecting our abilities, specifically our ability to converse with others. Nicholas Carr, author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” shares Turkle’s concern that technology is negatively affecting us. Carr focuses on loss of originality and ability to use our minds. Both authors fear for what is becoming of humans while relying on technology, specifically the internet, so much. Today’s situation with the internet does make me nervous. The internet is greatly affecting our abilities and our future potential, and we are allowing it.
Technology has always been, and likely always will be, an incredible asset. It is seemingly unending knowledge, right at our fingertips. I am very appreciative of the internet: I use it for nearly all my schoolwork now, my team’s schedule and statistics are a minute away, it helps direct me to places I have not driven to before, and so many other helpful things. I certainly cherish how much help the internet has been to me currently. However, I cannot help but see people who do not just see the internet as a helpful tool. I see the people who sit on their phones for hours on end or always have a screen pressed up against their faces. I see them sitting with people, but none of them are really there. They are all someplace else: somewhere more interesting than where they are currently sitting. Those people miss out on so much. It makes me worry for their future: how different would they have been if they had just looked up from their phones every so often? I do wonder if we will have people dying of old age in a few years, saying, “I wish I had spent more time in the present instead of on my electronics.” I wonder how far away we are from that.
800 Word Draft
The internet is very intricate. It seemingly goes on forever and ever. Do we know just how far the internet can go, just how much it really knows? The internet may be able to do things like trap our attention, suck us in, make us obsessed. And why should we not be? The internet is an incredible source of information that could give us anything we wish for, like an unlimited genie. However, the internet has a dark side. One that many people do not often want to think or talk about. Two people that are talking about it, and often, are Sherry Turkle and Nicholas Carr. Turkle is a clinical psychologist with a joint doctorate in sociology and personality psychology from Harvard. She also teaches at MIT and is the author of “The Empathy Diaries” along with multiple other works. Sherry does her best to spread the realization that the hold that technology has on us is negatively affecting our abilities, specifically our ability to converse with others. Nicholas Carr, author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” shares Turkle’s concern that technology is negatively affecting us. Carr focuses on loss of originality and ability to use our minds. Both authors fear for what is becoming of humans while relying on technology, specifically the internet, so much. Today’s situation with the internet does make me nervous. The internet is greatly affecting our abilities and our future potential, and we are allowing it.
Technology has always been, and likely always will be, an incredible asset. It is seemingly unending knowledge, right at our fingertips. I am very appreciative of the internet: I use it for nearly all my schoolwork now, my team’s schedule is a minute away, it helps direct me to places I have not driven to before, and so many other helpful things. I certainly cherish how much help the internet has been to me currently. However, I cannot help but see people who do not just see the internet as a helpful tool. I see the people who sit on their phones for hours on end or always have a screen pressed up against their faces. I see them sitting with other people, but none of them are truly present. They are all someplace else: somewhere more interesting than where they are currently sitting. Those people miss out on so much. It makes me worry for their future: how different would they have been if they had just looked up from their phones every so often? I do wonder if we will have people dying of old age in a few years, saying, “I wish I had spent more time in the present instead of on my electronics.” I wonder how far away in our future that is, and I hope it is not too soon.
Sherry Turkle and Nicholas Carr agree that our increased usage of the internet is causing us to move too quickly in life, in such a way that we miss out on so many things important to our development, specifically deeper understanding. In “The Empathy Diaries”, Sherry Turkle focuses on the loss of conversation that comes with the use of technology, especially in children who never learned true conversation before having a screen shoved into their hands. She fears for what we could lose along with damage to our ability to converse, because conversations are where “empathy and intimacy flourish and social action gains strength…but these conversations require time and space and we say we’re too busy” (344). Turkle believes that we have less time for everything else due to how much we use digital technology. Using the internet so much causes us to continue moving without stopping to take the time to talk with others, learn how to truly have a conversation, and understand others and ourselves. Carr focuses on how the internet has altered our attention spans which has led to a change in our ability to read deeper. Carr references Maryanne Wolf, and she says that “ ‘we are howwe read.’ Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts ‘efficiency’ and ‘immediacy’ above all else, may be weakening our capacity for…deep reading…our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged” (3). Carr and Wolf worry for the ability to read deeply and truly understand longer works due to reading today being focused on finding answers quickly. Both authors think that the pace that the internet runs at has made us start to force our lives to move at that speed. A fast-paced life and just searching for efficiency instead of taking time to understand what is in front of you is causing many other human abilities to become impaired. Due to less time being prioritized for conversation and reading, we are not learning to empathize or read deeper into situations. We start to skim through life and don’t bother to dive beneath the surface. I have seen firsthand in myself and others that the ability to understand something that takes time has gotten increasingly difficult, and I agree with both authors in that I am moving quick and not taking the time my brain needs to fully grasp some things. The speed of the internet is certainly taking its toll on us.
1200-word draft
The internet is very intricate. It seemingly goes on forever and ever. We do not really know just how much the internet truly knows. The internet can do things like trap our attention, suck us in, make us obsessed. It makes sense that we would be obsessed. The internet is an incredible source of information that could give us anything we wish for, like an unlimited genie. However, the internet has a dark side. One that many people do not often want to think or talk about. Two people that are talking about it, and often, are Sherry Turkle and Nicholas Carr. Turkle is a clinical psychologist with a joint doctorate in sociology and personality psychology from Harvard. She also teaches at MIT and is the author of “The Empathy Diaries” along with multiple other works. Sherry does her best to spread the realization that the hold that technology has on us is negatively affecting our abilities, specifically our ability to converse with others. Nicholas Carr, author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” shares Turkle’s concern that technology is negatively affecting us. Carr focuses on loss of originality and ability to use our minds. Both authors fear for what is becoming of humans while relying on technology, specifically the internet, so much. I share their wariness. The internet is greatly affecting our abilities and in turn, our future potential.
Sherry Turkle and Nicholas Carr agree that our increased usage of the internet is causing us to move too quickly in life, in such a way that we miss out on so many things important to our development, specifically deeper understanding. In “The Empathy Diaries”, Sherry Turkle focuses on the loss of conversation that comes with the use of technology, especially in children who never learned true conversation before having a screen shoved into their hands. She fears for what we could lose along with damage to our ability to converse, because conversations are where “empathy and intimacy flourish and social action gains strength…but these conversations require time and space and we say we’re too busy” (344). Turkle believes that we have less time for everything else due to how much we use digital technology. Using the internet so much causes us to continue moving without stopping to take the time to talk with others, learn how to truly have a conversation, and understand others and ourselves. Carr focuses on how the internet has altered our attention spans which has led to a change in our ability to read deeper. Carr references Maryanne Wolf, and she says that “ ‘we are howwe read.’ Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts ‘efficiency’ and ‘immediacy’ above all else, may be weakening our capacity for…deep reading…our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged” (3). Carr and Wolf worry for the ability to read deeply and truly understand longer works due to reading today being focused on finding answers quickly. Both authors think that the pace that the internet runs at has made us start to force our lives to move at that speed. A fast-paced life and just searching for efficiency instead of taking time to understand what is in front of you is causing many other human abilities to become impaired. Due to less time being prioritized for conversation and reading, we are not learning to empathize or read deeper into situations. We start to skim through life and do not bother to dive beneath the surface. I have seen firsthand in myself and others that the ability to understand something that takes time has gotten increasingly difficult, and I agree with both authors in that I am moving quick and not taking the time my brain needs to fully grasp some things. The speed of the internet is certainly taking its toll on us.
Technology has changed how we think, making us more indifferent. We do not do as much work as we used to, and in some ways that is certainly a good thing; we are more productive and efficient. However, we also are now unable to put in the necessary work because we are not used to working as hard as past generations have. Many people can see this happening, even if some choose to ignore it. Nicholas Carr has noticed: he notes that he has had an “uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with [his] brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. [His] mind isn’t going—so far as [he] can tell—but it’s changing. [He’s] not thinking the way [he] used to think” (1). Like Carr, some people can feel it themselves, but in some ways, it is easier to observe it about others. Sherry Turkle references a dean that noticed things being off with one of her students that tried to exclude another child from a social event. She “called the remiss seventh-grader into her office and asked why it happened. The girl didn’t have much to say: [The seventh-grader] was almost robotic in her response. She said, ‘I don’t have feelings about this.’ She couldn’t read the signals that the other student was hurt” (345). This young girl does not care to know or understand her classmate’s feelings. Many children are growing up not learning important ways of thinking or feelings. They spend so much time on technology that overall does not educate them on proper thinking, it just gives them a distraction and makes them think it is okay to not care. Not learning to care about others will be a serious disadvantage in their future.
Without learning certain human abilities because of the distraction that technology poses, children today may be set up for failure. Sherry Turkle especially worries for children who do not learn to have true conversations. She believes that without meaningful conversations, they in turn lose the ability to empathize with one another. Their future relationships may depend on how well they learn to work with others when they are young. Spending so much time on technology instead of spending time interacting with peers is hindering essential learning experiences. Turkle feels that “time in simulation gets children ready for more time in simulation. Time with people teaches children how to be in a relationship, beginning with the ability to have a conversation” (346). Kids today are not being well prepared for things that they are going to face as successful adults. They are not learning how to work together and get along with one another. This could cause problems in their future endeavors: working with coworkers, friendships, and even their romantic relationships. Without learning to share and listen and understand how others are feeling, people are not able to make true connections. They are not willing to try new things, only sticking with what they know they are comfortable with.
Final Draft
