400 Words

Technology is something that constantly surrounds us. It consumes us in our daily lives and can sometimes feel inescapable. Kids today—more specifically Gen Z and Gen Alpha—have little to no idea what life is like without the Internet and modern technology. Where some of these technologies have made incredible impacts, from life-saving medicine to a mechanical pencil. However, not all of the technologies we’ve been handed have had the greatest effects on our lives, more specifically, the Internet and our unlimited access to it. We have become codependent on it, we wouldn’t know what to do without it. Where the use of the Internet is a much preferred and more efficient method than having to do excessive physical research, it has damaged the way we live. Author, Nicholas Carr, of his essay, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, explains how we have become mindless addicts because of the Internet, constantly needing more from it. Author, Sherry Turkle, of her essay, The Empathy Diaries, discusses similar topics—like how the Internet and social media have made it nearly impossible for us to have normal conversations face-to-face—and also discusses how technology is not all necessarily bad.

Technology and the Internet have almost completely changed the way we do everyday things. For example, think of the last time you fully read an article without reading between the lines; is it difficult to think of when? This has become the norm for the majority of people, especially those who primarily read books or any type of article online. Carr describes his own personal experience with this situation, quoting, “Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy…Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” (Carr 1). Carr talks about the loss of the natural ability to do “deep reading,” something that one might do to fully absorb themselves in what they’re reading. Now, this may not be the case for every single person; I know plenty of people who can manage to get through an entire book in one sitting, I’ve found myself fully capable of doing so with a book or article whose topic piques my interest. The fact of the matter, however, is that because of the Internet, reading articles and books has become increasingly difficult for most people.

800 Words

Technology is something that constantly surrounds us. It consumes us in our daily lives and can sometimes feel inescapable. Kids today—more specifically Gen Z and Gen Alpha—have little to no idea what life is like without the Internet and modern technology. Where some of these technologies have made incredible impacts, from life-saving medicine to a mechanical pencil. However, not all of the technologies we’ve been handed have had the greatest effects on our lives, more specifically, the Internet and our unlimited access to it. We have become codependent on it, we wouldn’t know what to do without it. Where the use of the Internet is a much preferred and more efficient method than having to do excessive physical research, it has damaged the way we live. Author, Nicholas Carr, of his essay, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, explains how we have become mindless addicts because of the Internet, constantly needing more from it. Author, Sherry Turkle, of her essay, The Empathy Diaries, discusses similar topics—like how the Internet and social media have made it nearly impossible for us to have normal conversations face-to-face—and also discusses how technology is not all necessarily bad.

Technology and the Internet have almost completely changed the way we do everyday things. For example, think of the last time you fully read an article without reading between the lines; is it difficult to think of when? This has become the norm for the majority of people, especially those who primarily read books or any type of article online. Carr describes his own personal experience with this situation, quoting, “Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy…Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” (Carr 1). Carr talks about the loss of the natural ability to do “deep reading,” something that one might do to fully absorb themselves in what they’re reading. Now, this may not be the case for every single person; I know plenty of people who can manage to get through an entire book in one sitting, I’ve found myself fully capable of doing so with a book or article whose topic piques my interest. The fact of the matter, however, is that because of the Internet, reading articles and books has become increasingly difficult for most people. Why may you ask? Because of how fast we have access to just about anything and everything at the tip of our fingers, we expect almost everything to be just as fast, including our brains. We no longer allow our brains to fully take in the information it’s being given because we want to get to the next thing as quickly as possible. The worst part is that we’re not slowing down, but we are only continuing to speed up.

The Internet may be one of, if not, the best ways for people to connect with each other as quickly as possible. However, anyone on the Internet can pull the wool over one’s eyes. In other words, you could pose as someone completely different from your actual self, and everyone would be none the wiser. I’ll be one of the first to admit that I have always tried to be my most authentic self on and offline, but I definitely tried to act like a different person on the Internet and social media when I was younger. This can lead to friendships and relationships that people believe they have to be somewhat or completely fake. In her essay, Turkle describes how she has seen this firsthand in her experiments, stating, “From the early days, I saw that computers offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship and then, as the programs got really good, the illusion of friendship without the demands of intimacy. Because, face-to-face, people ask for things that computers never do…Real people demand responses to what they are feeling. And not just any response.” (Turkle 346). One of the biggest ideas from this quote is how people demand things in relationships. Not everything we ask of someone may feel like a demand, but when you think about it, almost everything we ask of someone is a demand, whether it be for an opinion or to listen, we are demanding something of someone. Through a screen, it can be so much easier to ignore or outright not fulfill these demands. Our confidence is so much greater when we aren’t physically looking or talking to a person—there’s no need to maintain eye contact or express any true thoughts or emotions. We only have to use the words that are typed onto our screens and how the receiver interprets those words, creating a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

1000 Words

Technology is something that constantly surrounds us. It consumes us in our daily lives and can sometimes feel inescapable. Kids today—more specifically Gen Z and Gen Alpha—have little to no idea what life is like without the Internet and modern technology. Where some of these technologies have made incredible impacts, from life-saving medicine to a mechanical pencil. However, not all of the technologies we’ve been handed have had the greatest effects on our lives, more specifically, the Internet and our unlimited access to it. We have become codependent on it, we wouldn’t know what to do without it. Where the use of the Internet is a much preferred and more efficient method than having to do excessive physical research, it has damaged the way we live.  Author, Nicholas Carr, of his essay, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, explains how we have become mindless addicts because of the Internet, constantly needing more from it. Author, Sherry Turkle, of her essay, The Empathy Diaries, discusses similar topics—like how the Internet and social media have made it nearly impossible for us to have normal conversations face-to-face—and also discusses how technology is not all necessarily bad.

            Technology and the Internet have almost completely changed the way we do everyday things. For example, think of the last time you fully read an article without reading between the lines; is it difficult to think of when? This has become the norm for the majority of people, especially those who primarily read books or any type of article online. Carr describes his own personal experience with this situation, quoting, “Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy…Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” (Carr 1). Carr talks about the loss of the natural ability to do “deep reading,” something that one might do to fully absorb themselves in what they’re reading. Now, this may not be the case for every single person; I know plenty of people who can manage to get through an entire book in one sitting, I’ve found myself fully capable of doing so with a book or article whose topic piques my interest. The fact of the matter, however, is that because of the Internet, reading articles and books has become increasingly difficult for most people. Why may you ask? Because of how fast we have access to just about anything and everything at the tip of our fingers, we expect almost everything to be just as fast, including our brains. We no longer allow our brains to fully take in the information it’s being given because we want to get to the next thing as quickly as possible. The worst part is that we’re not slowing down, but we are only continuing to speed up.

            The Internet may be one of, if not, the best ways for people to connect with each other as quickly as possible. However, anyone on the Internet can pull the wool over one’s eyes. In other words, you could pose as someone completely different from your actual self, and everyone would be none the wiser. I’ll be one of the first to admit that I have always tried to be my most authentic self on and offline, but I definitely tried to act like a different person on the Internet and social media when I was younger. This can lead to friendships and relationships that people believe they have to be somewhat or completely fake. In her essay, Turkle describes how she has seen this firsthand in her experiments, stating, “From the early days, I saw that computers offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship and then, as the programs got really good, the illusion of friendship without the demands of intimacy. Because, face-to-face, people ask for things that computers never do…Real people demand responses to what they are feeling. And not just any response.” (Turkle 346). One of the biggest ideas from this quote is how people demand things in relationships. Not everything we ask of someone may feel like a demand, but when you think about it, almost everything we ask of someone is a demand, whether it be for an opinion or to listen, we are demanding something of someone. Through a screen, it can be so much easier to ignore or outright not fulfill these demands. Our confidence is so much greater when we aren’t physically looking or talking to a person—there’s no need to maintain eye contact or express any true thoughts or emotions. We only have to use the words that are typed onto our screens and how the receiver interprets those words, creating a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

            We rely on our phones for several things: staying connected with one another, entertainment purposes, keeping ourselves informed, and much more. Some people believe that they are what help relieve their stresses and anxieties, but they are in fact the root of the problem. Imagine you have your phone one second and then it’s gone the next; it’s not in your pockets, it’s not on the counter, it’s nowhere in sight. A normal person would begin to panic for several reasons, one being the fact that it’s an expensive item, another being it has valuable pictures and videos of treasured memories, and possibly even the fact that it’s become one’s entire life and they don’t know who they would be without it. Some people have unfortunately developed this ideology. Turkle explains why this might be in her essay, which reads, “We are so accustomed to being always connected that being alone seems like a problem technology should solve…Afraid of being alone, we struggle to pay attention to ourselves. And what suffers is our ability to pay attention to each other. If we can’t find our own center, we lose confidence in what we have to offer others.” (Turkle 348). Not only are we losing our ability to talk with others, but we’re also losing the ability to better understand ourselves.