Signature Essay Third Source

Jeffrey McQuillen wrote “The Influence of Technology on the Initiation of Interpersonal Relationships” and discussed how technology is negatively affecting relationships today. He focused a lot on on-line relationships and how they allow people to present a false identity which misleads the person on the other side of the message. This is something that people are becoming much more comfortable doing and are relying on. One in three relationships is developed through the internet, and it seems that soon all relationships will be built this way. I agree with everything the McQuillen says in this article. I personally am very against online dating websites because I feel as if there are more cons than pros. The mere idea that someone can pretend to be someone they are not is scary in itself. In person someone may exaggerate about a job or income, but everything else is yours to see. You are not just taking someone’s word for it. Online they can be a 60 year old man and pretend to be a 23 year old woman. It may be that I watch too many crime shows to believe that people are who they are and trust to meet them alone. I know someone that started an account with one of these websites, found a match, went out to finally meet this person that the website said she was very compatible with, and came to find that her match was actually her brother. That is why they were compatible and had many of the same ideas and likings. This story, along with the many horror stories of meeting strangers alone, will forever keep me away from online databases. I believe that McQuillen does a good job of convincing his reader of the negative impacts of online dating. McQuillen and Carr have the same basis belief within their essays. Carr discusses how technology, specifically internet, has affected everyone’s brains. He says that whether it may be for the good or the bad, our brains are altered which therefor alters our actions as a whole. People are adapting to the overcoming of technology and becoming comfortable with the outcomes. This is seen in McQuillen’s essay because he thinks that people are becoming too comfortable finding a partner online. They are changing who they are to make themselves appear better then they truly are. People are than allowed to change their personalities to do this all of the time. This is how our brains are being biologically changed to adapt to the changes in society. Technology has made each generation change slightly, so the next generation is already adapted to this change and then adapts to a new change. All from technology. It is clear that although Carr and McQuillen spoke of different things in their essays, they have the same underlining concept that technology is in fact changing our world today.

"Getting Smarter" by Jamais Cascio

Summary: Cascio talks about how technology is not necessarily hurting us, but rather expanding our knowledge. Throughout the years of humanity, technological advances have also advanced humanity, making us have more knowledge and manual labor less important. He talks about how our attention span is clouded and short but its only because we have more things so easily available to us and could have tabs of information open at the same time. He talks about ADD that is given to us by technology, but how certain legal drugs could keep us super focused. He does not think that the web, or even video games, hurts our minds or makes us dumb.

Meaning/reaction: by this article, Cascio means that for the entirety of human existence, we have been expanding our knowledge by being approached with problems that we create solutions for the future. Technology that we create is for always for the use of something, even if that something is not information, but rather for entertainment. Even in that case, he argues that even videogames have great detail in them and relate to things in a bigger picture. In today’s world we have so many things at our fingertips, so much information, people’s opinions from all over the world. He does not think that this technology is making us dumber, although agrees that our attention span is now flawed due to the fact that we don’t just need to have one book in front of us, we could have whatever it is that we want to look up at that particular time. Even for me to read this whole article took a while because it was hard to pay attention, but I don’t think that that makes me stupid, it just makes me uninterested. There are plenty articles on the internet on subjects that I find interesting that I would be able to read straight through without stopping or having to go over a sentence twice. I agree with him, I don’t think our technology makes us more stupid, especially if used the right way. Often times people use technology stupidly, but that doesn’t make us stupid. We have grown and developed as human beings, and will continue to grow and develop as we are faced with new problems that need new solutions. The internet gives us a sort of awareness that we never had before by being able to have insight from all over the world, articles and even games. We should consider the technology that we have an advancement rather than a handicap. It is useful. Anything that I want to know I could just type into google, and with the right source, find my answer. I think that makes me know MORE then the generations before me, not less.

Tie in: This article ties in with Carr’s article because Cascio does agree that technology gives us a sort of “ADD”, and references Carr’s article because of this. He thinks that a lot of people have the same fear as Carr, in the sense that since he is of a generation before the intense use of the internet, it made him think differently or clouded his brain. However, Cascio does not thoroughly agree with Carr’s argument because he thinks on the opposite side, that although it may be affecting attention span somewhat, it is not making us stupid. He argues that the voices on the internet could often be mistaken as “noise”, meaning that peoples logical opinions on things could be mistaken as junk. He argues that this is not junk, and that the extra opinions could actually improve our way of thinking.

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.