Design
director of The New York Times Tom
Bodkin stated, ‘“Old media have little choice but to play by the new-media
rules,’” when explaining the new design of newspapers, a media that seems to be
slowly losing ground to smart phones and other modern technologies.
Bodkin
shared that the Times now include
abstracts of its articles so that the reader does not need to take the time to
actually flip through the pages of the newspaper and can simply skim to see
their interest is sparked [1]. Search engines on the Web, such as Google and
Bing, provide the reader with quick, easy access to numerous sites and make the
search for information much simpler than it had been in the past. Our
generation has grown accustomed to finding needed information with a click of
their mouse and would probably have a hard time imagining how past generations
survived without Wikipedia.
Our world is adapting to accommodate
the various ways that our brains have changed thanks to modern technology.
According to Dr. Tracy Packiam Alloway, our brains
are adapting and mastering the art of multi-tasking. Those who regularly use
technology seem to be better at managing information from more than one source
at a given time. Less frequent users normally need to tackle one source of
information at a time [2]. Instead of decreasing the level of productivity or efficiency,
it seems that the use of modern technologies can actually have positive effects
on us. Remembering information is not as important as it used to be because we
are able to shift from one task to another and process information more
efficiently. Our world is transforming because of today’s technology. There is
no reason that we should restrict ourselves from following the natural
evolution that seems to be taking place. We mustn’t be afraid of change.
1 Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid? - Magazine - The Atlantic." The Atlantic — News and Analysis on Politics, Business, Culture, Technology, National, International, and Life – TheAtlantic.com. The Atlantic, July 2008. Web. 08 Feb. 2012.
Health, Help, Happiness + Find a Therapist. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/keep-it-in-mind/201107/is-
technology-making-our-brains-lazy (accessed February 8, 2012).
I think your post makes some great points. I also wrote about how articles now post an abstract or short synopsis to save you the time of reading the actual article. I feel like they can help save a person time because they wouldn't have to read the entire article to see if it relates to their research; then again, there are some people who might use the article as a source for their paper but only read the abstract because they are lazy.
ReplyDeleteI also like how you mentioned Wikipedia. I remember all of my high school teachers and college professors saying that Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Wikipedia has saved my life and has helped to answer so many questions I have had.