You Know What They Say About A Rolling Stone.

     Occasionally, in polite conversation and serious debate, I like to reference my favorite videogame, Bioshock. That's where the sighs begin. "Oh, he's referencing a video game. Here we go." But the game hit hard, with its sci-fi setting and tales of technology gone wild in ways that a book never could connect for me. I'm a hands-on learner. I like to do with my hands and experience things on my own. The medium is a wonderful tool for grasping the attention of people wired like me, and it's really effective for a lot of people. In a sense, I suppose it works like the web, easier to grasp and keep a hold of.

     There's a lot of memorable lines in Bioshock regarding technology- the setting is basically Atlantis gone wrong. It exists as a parody of Ayn Rand's philosophy (which is a deep hole to say the least) but basically, with all sense of ethics and laws holding back scientists, artists, and economists, the city prospered. But it prospered too fast. Genetic modifications become possible, and soon, as the memorably insane Doctor Steinman remarks, "As your tools improve, so do your standards." In fact, the sentence hits home so strongly in a setting where people genetically modified themselves into monsters, demanding more and more that the phrase immediately came to mind. That's all Google is doing- playing the technological arms race.

     So the question you might pose next is "But where do you draw the line? How far is too far?" That question is fine, but I'd like to pose a different question. Why are we blaming the technology? As a responsible adult, I'd like to believe that if a tool is created for a respectable purpose, then its existed should not be outlawed because it could be used to harm oneself or another. It reminds me of when one student would break the rules in grade school, so the whole class would be punished. It's unfair. That's why I have to side with Google on this one.

     I believe in what Google is doing. Google search is a tool that greatly benefits many people. Perhaps it has harmed a few, but even then, it's a tool they've chosen to use, and the consequences should be theirs to deal with. I admit that I don't read in long stretches. I admit that my attention span may be lower because of the web. These are consequences I am not complaining about, but dealing with. And that's the way I believe it should go. Yes, Google is making some of us stupid. Undoubtedly so. However, as your tools improve, so do your standards. Just as video killed the radio star, the internet is slowly killing the TV star, and now the author. (Although, the film star seems to be fairing pretty well.) But is this a problem? I wouldn't say so.

     So if our brains are dying, and our stars are dying, what do we do? It's simple. We innovate. In fact, we're already dealing with the problem. Webcomics which update regularly feed us in simple, manageable chunks, can keep us invested in narrative far longer than any book could. Homestuck, a popular webcomic has more than 6400 pages and an unbelievable fanbase, a story more complex than most novels.

Perhaps we are losing the book and the library, maybe even the television, but if a better way comes along, is the loss really all that bad? It's something to consider. If our tools improve, our standards improve. The converse is true as well, and it's even part of the driving source of our economy. Technology serves us, and as we invent bigger and better computers, will anyone sincerely miss the PDP-11? I didn't think so.