Nicholas Carr has written an article titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr has also written a book on how the internet is affecting our brains called, “The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google.” In his article, Carr explain how he can no longer concentrate and is more fidgety when trying to deep read long essays or books. I can say that I have the same problem. He claims that this is happening to us all and we can honestly blame the internet for this problem. Americans are spending so much time on the internet via Facebook or Myspace that all they are used to reading is short text. While on the Net there are many ads and messages that seem to relate to you to try and drag you in. Because of these frequent interruptions internet users “ have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing,” Carr elucidates. It is the style of reading promoted by the internet along with all the distractions that is weakening our capability to deeply read intricate works of writing.
It is Carr’s explanation of how the internet and our computer are growing into a powerhouse system that has subsumed most of our daily used technologies. We use computers for every thing now-a-days. Everything is about the convenience of fast efficient reading. It’s crazy how far we have come with our technologies, but it is almost a downfall on our ability to stay focused. People no longer can bare to sit down and read an individual piece of writing anymore. Carr seems to prove a point very well and seems to know that every one can relate to the shortening of attention spans. When I am on my computer I always have more than one site up, or am trying to write a paper with Facebook in front of me. It is very hard to concentrate on the computer, especially when working with a long homework assignment. Most of us believe our brains are fully formed and at a stable stage once we reach adulthood but that isn’t totally true. Scientists are concluding that our brains will always be malleable to some extent. So the more we use the Web the more likely we are to alter our brain with the internet’s bad habits.
Welcome!
Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
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