Carr and Hedges

     Nicholas Carr's article title "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" provides enlightenment on the negative effects of the increasingly technologic society that we live in. He contends that as the intelligence of programs being produced by Google continue to increase that the capability of Americans decreases. Carr has presented here an inverse relationship between the intelligence of technology and the intelligence of people. Carr also points out that "the human brain is almost infinitely malleable." The brain has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions." Carr believes that the dependency on the Internet has begun to reprogram our brains to become less attentive and "dumber." Even the educated writers and readers are having a difficult time being able to stay focused on long pieces of writing in the days Google and advertisements and pop-ups. In Hedges piece titled "America the Illiterate," he tackles the issue of the increasingly dumbed-down writing and reading levels of the American population. He points out that during the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, the presidential candidates spoke at a level of that of a 11th or 12th grade student, while in the more recent Bush-Gore debates of 2000 the candidates spoke at a 6th grade level. Hedges points out that the decrease in reading levels is due to society becoming focused on instant-gratification and entertainment. Both Carr and Hedges point towards a higher level of technology being responsible for a the lower level of intelligence in the United States. I would have to agree with both of these writers. I also believe that the shift from print media to the Internet has created a lazy America. Rather than reading through the daily paper for news, people instead check mobile news apps every now and then and read only a paragraph or two for information.