chapters 6,7,8

Chapter 6

“A long sequence of printed pages assembeled between a pair of stiff covers has proven to be a remarkably robust technology, remaining useful and popular for more than half a millennium.”

Its amazing to think how long books have been around, and how little they have changed since they were invented. The basics of what a book is (words on a page of paper) is a simple but powerful technology, and the last few years we have seen the first challenging advances in technology like the Kindel.

“Many observers believe its only a matter of time before social networking functions are incorporated into digital readers, turning reading into something like a team sport. We’ll chat and pass virtual notes while scanning electronic text.”

The future of reading seems like it is on the verge of change. Having your book connected to the internet and the rest of the world seems like it would interfere with the basic act of reading a book from start to finish. A book could possibly be better digested by someone if everything in the book they could google search, but It seems to me like this would take all the critical thinking out of reading a book, and just leave people with a spark notes understanding it.

“Electronic text is impermanent. In the digital marketplace, publication becomes an ongoing process rather than a discrete event, and revision can go on indefinitely.”

The information that we access will be constantly updating. Everyone will be able to share ideas instantly around the world, and what we think we know and understand will be a constant cycle of new information.

Chapter 7

“With the exception of alphabets and number systems, the Net may well be the single most powerful mind altering technology that has ever come into general use.”

This statement terrifies me. My generation is the first to see the internet be born and start to grow. The fact that the internet can alter the way our brains work seems like something we need to be on top of. With everything going on right now about trying to own and regulate the Net we could be allowing government and corporations to have a mind control device that is in the hands of every citizen. The technology is getting into younger kids than ever before as well.

“When were online, we’re often oblivious to everything else going on around us. The real world recedes as we process the flood of the symbols and stimuli coming through our devices. “

The internet demands a lot of our attention. We can become so focused on the little screen, and not think enough about what is going on around you. Our priorities get mixed up in the internet age. While we are communicating through our devices all day, there is real human interaction that we will not be having. We have become zombie like walking around with our heads lost in the world wide web.

“If they stop sending messages, they risk becoming invisible.”

I understand this idea, but don’t understand why it has become such a major issue on young peoples minds. There is so many people posting and messaging together, it is easy to fall out of the loop now days. The feeling of not having your phone or an internet connection makes me feel like I’m no longer connected to everyone. We are so connected to each other it is in a way a giant safety net. If I ever need anything I always have my list of contacts and the internet to ask for answers. I prefer to live without these tools, but it is becoming harder to give them up.

Chapter 8

“Irene Au, the companies director of user experience, says that google relies on “cognitive pshychology research” to further its goal of “making people use their computers more effectively.”

The company carries out thousands of expeiriments everyday, and uses the results to improve upon their search engine. Google knows how the human brain reacts to their search engine. They know how to shape it and how to best work with our minds.

“Anything that stands in the way of the speedy collection, dissection, and transmission of data is a threat not only to google’s business but to the new utopia of cognitive efficiency it aims to construct on the internet.”

What could be a threat to google? Google is becoming too big of a company it owns too much. The only way for Google to obtain their goal of “the perfect search engine” they will need to own and have acces to everything on the Net, and as of now they seem to be on the right track.

“If our brains are computers, then intelligence becomes can be reduced to a matter of productivity of running more bits of data more quickly through the big chip in our skull. Human intelligence becomes indistinguishable from machine intelligence.”

If this was completely true then the accessibility of the internet, and the speed of how quickly we can gather information, should give us all we need to become extremely intelligent. We are now able to put in an endless amount of information all day everyday as long as there is an internet browser nearby.