Let Me Google That For You - Mary Lobo (Group B)

I use Google to look up everything.  I look up important questions that I have about topics that I am learning about in school, I look up the age and histories of certain actors, and I even look up medical symptoms that I might be showing when I get a cold.  Whether I am on my laptop and quickly open up Google Chrome to do some searching or if I am on my cell phone and briefly pop open Safari, I nearly always have the Internet at my fingertips and I definitely use it.  Of course, sometimes looking everything up can backfire a bit.  Occasionally I will get too caught up reading Wikipedia articles or link-surfing by bouncing back and forth from article to article online and get distracted from the tasks that I should actually be completing.  By looking up symptoms to medical issues I almost always “diagnose” myself with some horrible disease when I simply have the sniffles.

I remember learning how to use Google all the way back in early elementary school.  For over a decade now my classmates and I have used Google for thousands of assignments and it is hard to imagine a world without it.  As Carr said, “The Net has become my all-purpose medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind.” (Carr, 6).  I find this particularly true.  Even things that I already know the answer to I find myself checking with Google just to make sure that I am correct.  There are even websites that make fun of people who dare to ask questions before going to Google for the answer. Let Me Google That For You is a website where, if someone asks you a question you can Google it and send them a link OF you Googling it.  It’s a reminder that no one even really has to speak to each other or use one another as sourced for information because all they have to do now is search for it online.  This article shows some of the many ways that Google has changed the world.

            The “Tools of the Mind” chapter of The Shallows, was very interesting.  Carr went into details about human development when it comes to tools such as drawing and the understanding boundaries and how clocks and time have changed over the years and how time is able to dictate life.  His says “Every technology is an expression of human will.  Through our tools, seek to expand our power and control over our circumstances – over nature.”  This is a particularly effective statement.  It makes me think that we as humans no longer leave anything to happen on its own anymore.  We are constantly forcing ourselves and the world around us to work around the technological constructs that we have put in place.  Humans created wristwatches that are now a constant reminder that our lives are strictly dictated by little ticks and tocks that humans are responsible for defining anyway.
            I think that Carr has made some interesting points so far and I am looking forward to reading more from him.  It is amazing to see exactly how much technology effects humans.  Sometimes I think that we don’t realize how broad of a category “technology” actually is and it isn’t until people like Carr bring up many of the ideas that we can fully comprehend it.  Technology is all around us and it controls nearly every aspect of our lives for better or for worse.