There are a few authors involved in the discussion of how technology has been affecting our lives over the past few decades. Nicholas Carr and Sam Anderson both share a variety of viewpoints and list an inclusive scramble to learn how certain technologies impact us more than others. Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, an opening idea that gets brought up is how we interact with the access to almost limitless information. With access to millions of databases, critical on the spot thinking and the ability to have human interactions have been lost to the virtual world. From page 3, it introduces a study about the “power browse” for gaining some amount of information in rapid succession with a minimal effort input. Maryanne Wolf, from a study that Carr interacts with, calls this idea, “We are how we read”, where she worries that the immediate effect in which we aggressively chase is weaking the capacity to how we can deeply interact with a text. Anderson’s, “In Defense of Distraction”, the first paragraph on page 5 discusses the myth that the ability of multitasking, even after thorough research, is merely a myth. I lean to disagree. It continues by describing multitasking is where the brain is in rapid-fire mode just jumping between avenues of focus in a repeated and anticipated way as a myth for something that we need to perform well on a task. Although “multitasking” is challenging to perfectly describe, I think we see it in our lives more often than not. Maybe not in the streamlined way Anderson sees it, but as a subtle, more behind the curtain way. He brings up the driving the car and texting, a very extreme, polarizing combo with a dangerous overlooked potential outcome.

Both Carr and Anderson see the advantages of what technology can provide us. With an ever-evolving society and a drive for advancement that is through the roof, technology has most certainly gotten to a point where it has begun to affect how we see each other and the way we collect our knowledge. In Carr’s passage on page 3 paragraph 3, he mentions “The ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply”, this is an interesting point on how he views not only from an educational perspective, but also from the perspective of how our ability to recognize a language could decline and not having the ability to break down and apply the write-up of that information.

Anderson opens this topic by describing multitasking is where the brain is in rapid-fire mode just jumping between avenues of focus in a repeated and anticipated way as a myth for something that we need to perform well on a task. Although “multitasking” is challenging to perfectly describe, I think we see it in our lives more often than not. Maybe not in the streamlined way Anderson sees it, but as a subtle, more behind the curtain way. He brings up the driving the car and texting, a very extreme, polarizing combo with a dangerous overlooked potential outcome. But what about writing an essay. Reading and digesting an article and then interpreting it in your own way, writing, reading, editing as you go. Not dangerous in any kind of way, but most certainly strenuous and challenges the brain. What about professional chefs, making sure the food is prepped correctly, applying correct techniques, assuming that you have given the food enough time to render out, being observant of sharp objects and hot metals, fast-paced people moving all at once around you in a constant controlled chaotic motion. The more I think about it, the more I disagree with this institutionalized “myth” that calculated and precise multitasking is bad, I see it as something we require in our lives to function.

In the eyes of Nicholas Carr and Sam Anderson, they have both written detailed articles about how the influence of technology has a mostly negative effect on humans and the interactions with others that follow. Efficiency may not always be the most effective, we as humans constantly look for the easiest avenue to the finish line in a race where we already start in a deficit. In Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, page 3 introduces a study about the “power browse” for gaining some amount of information. From paragraph 2, Maryanne Wolf from the study calls this idea the, “We are how we read”, where she worries the immediate effect in which we aggressively chase is weaking the capacity to how we can deeply interact with a text. This is nearly parallel to how humans have become so addicted to the screen and dragging us away from the necessary exposure to interaction where we clearly have more social impact both as an observer and speaker.