The Influence of Modern Technologies on People

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We live in the era of information changes. People cannot imagine their life without computer technologies and internet. There is a great flow of information which overwhelms us every day. We may find everything we need via the internet. It seems that people begin to spend more time in the internet, and it becomes their life. The virtual reality supplants a real life.

Adam Gopnik makes the emphasis on the influence of the internet on the modern life in his article, ‘The Information: How the Internet Gets inside Us’. As an example, he mentions the scene from the first Harry Potter book which confuses many children because it describes that Hermione Granger goes to the library to find the answer for her question. It is simpler to Google the necessary question and the internet will easily find the answer.

Why does she spend hours in the library looking for the answer? Many people consider these changes to be the technological revolution. Adam Gopnik points out that this is a big social revolution. The past twenty years are considered to be the revolution in means less than in morals. People prefer using the internet rather than reading books. Gopnik highlights that there is a certain paradox that nowadays, there are millions of books explaining why books are underestimated. The author describes different kinds of books about the internet. He calls them the Never-Betters, the Ever-Wasers and the Better-Nevers.

The Never-Betters believe that this era of technological development is a new utopia where you are free to access the necessary information. “The news will be made from the bottom up, love will reign, and cookies will bake themselves” (Gopnik, 2012). However, according to the Better-Nevers, everything would be better if this revolution had never happened and the books had reigned over people’s minds. Ever-Wasers consider these innovations to be the modern changes that are going on and are inevitable in the current system.

In fact, the creation of the internet is connected with the invention of Gutenberg printing press. This is a kind of a paradox when the emergence of the book publisher ends in their unpopularity. According to the professor Clay Shirky, “the Gutenberg printing press produced the Reformation, which produced the Scientific Revolution, which produced the Enlightenment, which produced the Internet, each move more liberating than the one before” (Gopnik, 2012). Is the liberty of information useful for modern society? Does it make our life better? Although the Internet provides all the necessary information, nobody is responsible for its accuracy (Carr, 68).

The liberation of information supplants its value which consists of its reliability and accuracy. There is no sense in such information which is false and unreliable. On the other hand, books still remain a trustworthy and reliable source of information. Clay Shirky considers the Internet to be the means of connecting people into the global society penetrated with freedom. According to the modern psychologist John Tooby, “Printing ignited the previously wasted intellectual potential of huge segments of the population…. Freedom of thought and speech—where they exist—were unforeseen offspring of the printing press” (Gopnik, 2012). The Internet is the way to the freedom of speech and thought as the Never-Betters believe.

Adam Gopnik disputes Tooby’s point of view. He points out that “the printing press rapidly gave birth to a new order of information, democratic and bottom-up, is a cruel cartoon of the truth” (Gopnik, 2012). If the printing press was the reason of Reformation, the era which followed it was not the Enlightenment, it was the Counter-Reformation as far as both these epochs use books to spread their ideas and thoughts. Books have always been the main source of information. In fact, the printing press and the internet are two parallel means of spreading the information.

As a matter of fact, the internet as well as books aim at the same goal, namely to pass the information to the people’s minds. The Internet has its advantages and disadvantages. We may find all the information we need in the Internet; moreover, it is cheaper and more convenient than looking for the books and spending our money on buying them. On the one hand, the Internet saves our time when we search for the necessary information. On the other hand, it is the main thief of our time.

The main drawback of the information which is available at the Internet is its trustworthiness. Of course, we may find primary sources in the Internet which are the electronic books but we have to pay for them to get the accurate information. People are accustomed to use that information which is available and free without taking into account its accuracy. That is why, people prefer reading different sites or blogs rather than reading books. They read abstracts and summaries which express other people’s points of view, but they do not read the original works. In fact, such attitude to the books steals useful information (Goldsmith 61).

As for the three main approaches provided by Adam Gopnik in his article, I support the Ever-Wasers’ point of view as far as the digital age is in fact a new form of the same people’s worries and anxieties they have had about technologies for the centuries. Of course, the Internet has changed our way of life as well as thinking and perception (Morozov 72). Nevertheless, it does not exclude books at all. People who are accustomed to read books continue reading them, and people who prefer the online-books will use the modern technologies for receiving the information. As for me, I try to find the right balance in my life. I quite often use the Internet, but I continue reading books as far as I realize that reading online sources does not have the same effect on me.

It is quite difficult to judge whether the changes caused by the digital age are the improvement of our life or its degradation. The Never-Betters and the Better-Nevers have the contradictory points of view. The Never-Betters idealize this era as the way to the development, while the Better-Nevers attack it believing that it deprecates the value of information. There are a lot of pluses and minuses in the digital age which are inevitable after all because they are the next step of human development.

Many people cannot imagine another life because for them, it is quite difficult – or even impossible – to stop using the Internet. It has become the integral part of the modern life. There are people who make a fortune with the help of the Internet and consider it as the best achievement of the humanity. Others spend a lot of time in the Internet without any benefits continuing degradation and stultification. In fact, it is the choice of every person how to use the Internet. People who do not like reading and looking for new information in order to upgrade their skills and know something new would still waste their time even without the Internet. As we can see, the Internet is not the main reason of human stultification. People themselves choose the way of their life.

Adam Gopnik’s article makes me think over the role of the Internet in our life. Do we live in a new era of modern technologies? Are we people with a new way of thinking? The digital era helps people to be in the know of the events happened all over the world. In fact, the Internet makes the whole world a global village where every citizen has the access to the information as well as he/she has the right to share this information regardless of its accuracy. The best example is Wikipedia where everyone may find all the information he/she wants and nobody is responsible for its reliability. The truth has become the main problem of our century.

It is quite difficult to find the true and reliable information among the great flow which attacks a human mind in the Internet. It has become easy to influence the millions of minds with the help of the Internet. We may become somebody’s marionette without realizing it. Do the books have the same influence? Of course, books are also the main means of influence over people’s minds as there are the so-called useful and harmful books in the human history. It is our choice what we prefer for reading; however, it is very important to be very attentive to the information we encounter. We should not rely on the other people’s opinions without checking the primary resources. People should be very careful not to litter their mind with senseless and unreliable information.

Reflective Letter

Adam Gopnik’s article makes me think over the role of the Internet in our life. I base my essay on his main points of view, namely his classification of primary approaches of the digital age. I summarize his classification in my essay and express my own point of view in regard of this. More than that, I support one of these three main approaches in my essay providing some arguments for my point of view. I use other primary resources which help me formulate my thoughts.

Considering other people’s points of view, I formulate my own one. Having read the article, I wrote on the separate sheet of paper three main approaches and the arguments supporting them which help me make a conclusion which approach is more persuasive. Then I wrote advantages and disadvantages of the Internet and the books and compared them which helped me come up with the conclusion about their role in the modern life. Summarizing all these thoughts, I wrote this essay.

The arguments and the rhetoric questions are the strong point of my essay as far as it makes the reader think over the problem covered in my work. Nevertheless, my essay is not based on the profound research. Maybe, I will change my mind if I read more sources on this subject. My essay is the response only to Adam Gopnik’s article. There may be a wide range of arguments concerning this subject as far as this problem is covered in millions of works. It is one of the weak points of my essay.

This essay and Adam Gopnik’s article attract my attention to the burning issue of our society. I have made the conclusion that I should be very attentive to the books and sites I read and movies I watch. All the information should be checked and analyzed before making some conclusions. People’s minds are littered with senseless information, that is why I do not want my mind to be littered with the other people’s points of view which are not accurate.

Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains? USA: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011. Print.

Goldsmith, Jack. Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World. USA: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.

Gopnik, Adam. ‘The Information: How the Internet Gets inside Us’. The New Yorker. 2011: 1-8. NewYorker. Web.

Morozov, Evgeny. The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. USA: Public Affairs, 2012. Print.

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The Influence of Modern Technologies on People

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