a position regarding google or the larger concept of the interweb in general

I feel like I keep resorting back to a very strong inner dichotomy when it comes to the pros and cons of a life that revolves around the computer. The article talks about “reaching for the fast-forward button” in real life only to find that one does not exist. I can relate to that. I think about quickly “COMMAND Z-ing” any mistakes I make while sitting in a drawing class. I rely on the ability to work out every possibility when I am designing something in InDesign, Illustrator or Photoshop. Command Z allows the creator an endless amount of attempts to get it right. But what if we are supposed to make the mistakes that COMMAND Z can only erase in a virtual world? What if having endless opportunities to “get it right” disables a creator’s ability to commit to literal or metaphorical stroke of the pencil. Too many choices makes decision time difficult.

Michael Cain in Batman Begins says, “Why do we fall sir? So we might learn to pick ourselves up…” I often think that if our lives revolve around a machine that allows us the opportunity to so readily erase any mistakes we might make, we are not learning to “pick ourselves up.”

I have friends that will only communicate to me through texting or email. They will not answer the phone when I call. While this might be a financial decision, or maybe they just don’t want to talk to me….part of me wonders if they have become too accustomed to crafting or distilling their speech. One on one conversation does not allow for COMMAND Z. Once a person says something live to someone else, it’s out there and there’s no taking it back and no anonymity. Are people going to become afraid to talk in person because they become accustomed to getting it right in a virtual world. Facebook addicts are like this. They’re able to arduously craft every thing that their “friends” see and know about them. People are much more naked in the real world than they are in the computer world.

critical response to article (9/1/2010)

Nicholas Carr poignantly addresses all of the same idiosyncrasies that have plagued my love/hate relationship with this new “plugged in” world. From my perspective, the computer has become this really fancy social networking gadget, but to see someone sitting at a computer or laptop renders him or her unapproachable. The device has encased them in this imaginary, yet socially understood, cocoon of solitude. There is a very sick irony there.

I have been concerned for a while about the consequences of having the answer to any probing query so readily at my fingertips. I’m worried about the biological ramifications of relying on a Google search to remember something that my brain could not. This is why I feel the need to take ginkgo biloba twice a day. The computer has become a crutch for thinking. If a person breaks their leg and they are forced to use a crutch to walk, the unused leg becomes weak. If that person were to continue to use that crutch, the unused leg would eventually atrophy. What if we are atrophying the part of our brain that is responsible for recall with the Internet?

Carr talks about Google’s philosophy. Google wants to make the world’s information “universally accessible and useful” to improve upon our productivity as thinkers. I hear this and I can only think of another analogy. Imagine two lions. One lives a lazy existence in a small habitat at the Toledo Zoo and is spoon-fed a steady diet of raw steak cutlets and the other is a cunning predator that relies on its’ prowess and intellect to survive in the vast Kalahari Desert. Can one argue that the Toledo Zoo lion is being denied his instinctual purpose in this world? Are we denying ourselves a necessary developmental hunt for knowledge if everything is completely distilled and spelled out for us by the Internet?

"BRAINSearCHING®......Bitches." {Round One}

EXPERIMENTING (ANAGLYPH VIDEO)