Summary of An Ugly Toll of Technology: Impatience and Forgetfulness & a comparison to Carr

Summary

According to Pope’s article of An Ugly Toll of Technology: Impatience and Forgetfulness, we are becoming too dependent on technology. Instead of building new memories and focusing less on those bad situations that occurred in our past, we are forced to reminisce about uncomfortable situations such as an “argument with a spouse” or a quarrel with a friend.
Pope also states that technology increases our dependency on others, where we feel alone if we are not in “cyber-contact” with others. Pope explains that technology is becoming an addition like that of gambling, or a sickness, like an eating disorder. She explains that in order to keep ourselves under control we should monitor our technology uses in the future.

Reflection on meaning

My interpretations based on Pope’s article are that technology is causing us to be dependent on “cyber-social” relationships. Instead of visiting an old friend, we simply look them up on Facebook. Instead of enjoying conversations at lunches with co-workers or family dinners, we are more consumed with being engrossed by our smart phones. We are losing our relationships through the uses of the internet, children are disconnected with parents through the uses of cell phones and computers. Wireless internet provides instant access to limitless knowledge and online friendships- these are disconnecting all of us from use of social interactions and skills.
My interpretations of how Pope indicates that we can fix this problem to simply limit ourselves from too much technology- refrain from taking our cell phones a few times a week when we leave the house, or only use the computer during certain hours a day. Technology addiction should be treated with the same intensity as a gambling addiction or eating disorder.



Comparrison
In relationship to Carr’s Is Google Making Us Stupid? both Carr and Pope discuss the results of technology on cognitive, or memory, judgment, and reasoning. Both state that our thought process are disrupted, where listening to a child or reading an uninteresting book may seem like an uncomfortable eternity- where patience is limited. Carr however, feels that we are overpowered by ambition and are becoming too reliant on the internet for a directory of this ambition. He claims that in everyone’s case (where technology is accessible), their ways of thinking is changing and becoming more limited due to the limitless knowledge and sources available at the click of a button,
Pope relates her article to that of Carr’s by stating that memories are not simply memories. She mentions that we are becoming too dependent on technology and are simply remembering that we “went on vacation,” instead of the experience brought by it. Carr shares this similar quality. Carr explains that are relationships are becoming superficial with limits on face-to-face communication and the social experiences one is denied of through technology.