For today’s class, you read Carr, The Shallows, Five. Spend the first ten minutes of class writing a summary of your reading of this chapter. What was Carr’s thesis in this chapter? What were some of the examples that he gives to support his argument? What were some of the names or terms that you researched on your own to help you better understand your reading?
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I have just read the fifth chapter from “The Shallows ” by Nicholas Carr. Here is the chapter summary : The internet is very powerful and its becoming more powerful every day. Itâs becoming our typewriter and our printing press, our map and our clock, our calculator and our telephone, our post office and our library, our radio and our TV. Once information is digitized, the boundaries between media dissolve. We replace our special-purpose tools with an all-purpose tool. The net differs from most of the mass media it replaces everything in an obvious and very important way. It’s called bidirectional.
When the net absorbs a medium, it re-creates that medium in its own way. It not only dissolves the mediumâs physical form; it injects the mediumâs content with hyperlinks and break up . So the content can become searchable chunks, and it also surrounds the content with the content of all the other media it has absorbed. All these changes in the form of the content also change the way we use, experience, and even understand that content.
Beside the software its hardware is also becoming more powerful. Over the past three decades, the number of instructions a computer chip can process every second has doubled about every three years, while the cost of processing those instructions has fallen by almost half every year.
According to Chapter 5, “A medium of the most General Nature”, 1954 is when first digital computers were moving into mass production. Alan Turing was an excellent mathematician who killed himself. By eating a cyanite laced apple, which had been “plucked incalculable cost”. He played a role in the second World War, cracking the codes of Enigma, which was a typewriter that the Nazis used to encipher and decipher military commands and other sensitive messages. Alan Turing is remembered best as the creator of an imaginary computer device that anticipated, and served as a blueprint for, the modern computer. I liked that they talked about how he was the root of the modern day computer and how they told a little bit of his achievements and what he has been through in his life. Although Alan Turing was not the first person to imagine how a programmable computer might work, Charles Babbage has drawn up plans for an “analytical engine” that would be “a machine of the most general nature”, turing still understood more about digital computers limitation adaptability. Carr explains that as the Net grows, less time we spends reading publications, especially Newspapers and magazines, as well as books. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American spends 143 minutes a week reading and this drop eleven percent since 2004.
âA Medium Of The Most General Natureâ discuss Alan Turing helping destroy the Enigma which led to a huge accomplishment during WW2. His purpose in writing was implied to that their is never an ideal structure for logic. Turing created a simple digital calculator which has reading, writing and erase symbols. This computer was able to execute just like âany other information- processing device.â After he died, many traditional mediaâs such as words, numbers,etc. became converted into digital code. Carr uses Turingâs digital codes as an example to how his implications are being used in today’s computers. Images started off black and white with low resolution which turned them blurry, but later the size of the internet started to enlarge. Because of this, the net can grasp color and high resolution pictures. Carr brings up that the internet is âbidirectionalâ in which he talks about sending messages to one another as well as receive them. This helped with business, virtual catalogs, track shipments and many more. This revolution of technology has now affected us in our work fields, schools and our homes.
In chapter five of the shallows it explains how the internet is becoming the one thing that we use for just about everything. It has turned our lives around because we can now have a writing tool, drawing tool calculator, radio, game player and many other things in our own pocket and this is mostly because of the internet. The internet has become a major necessity in the technological world that we now live in today. With the addition of internet in our lives there was also a change between our old lives and the new one we live now. For example, reading a book which I have noticed on the way to school, we are going from reading a paper book to reading on a tablet, mostly on a kindle
Chapter 5 talks about the âwebâ taking over at a break neck speed. Adam M. Turing was mentioned because he made the first imaginary system. He was known to be a very brilliant mathematician who killed himself due to eating a chemical apple instead of going to jail. He was also well known because he was responsible for cracking the code to the Enigma Machine in WW2. A lot of tools advanced due to his idea for example, the Enigma Machine. This machine was used by the Germans in World War 1 and, it was use for military communication. The Nazis used it to send signals back and forth on the battle field in codes. This was one invention that was created due to the idea of the imaginary system age. In modern time, every compute we use are based off the old Main Frame Computing system. The Main Frame Computing system are just a bunch of computers grouped together to do a task. Carr also goes on explaining why the computers are bidirectional. For example, text messages are received and also delivered back to the source.
According to chapter five in the book The shallows, Nicholas Carr makes sure we are well educated with technology new and old. The advantages that we have now using new technology is nothing compared to what people experienced back then with old technology. Businesses such as magazines, newspaper, radios, and tv programs were the first businesses to open online websites. They all applied daily articles ,excerpts, and other pieces of writing on their sites. Thoughtout time there was a way to incorporate pictures, drawings and animations on these websites. Entertainment companies such as netflix and apple were the first to send high-definition movies and also tv shows to customers homes. Unfortunately these companies have made movies and dvds difficult to sell, which is a major profit for the hollywood studios. What we all know is with just a few clicks on the web we could place orders, search virtual catalogues, track shipments, connect with one another, and update information. In the year 2009 there was a large amount of new technology that was being distributed to the world.Many people decided to waste half of their day on the internet. Studies have proven the more technology distributed to human,the more hours we will spend on it. For example a person can be watched tv,be on there phones,and on a laptop what we don;t notice is that technology is controlling all of us. Making our lives easier, and turning us into comptuer dummies. The way technology has changed reading is extraordinary. Before the kindle, nooks, tablets, and computers were invited we all had words on pages. The old method of being engaged is actually turning the pages and reading the articles but now that we have e-books all we could do is pretend to flip the pages without index finger. The method of being engaged will slowly disappear with all these new technology.
Rahat Ahmed
Professor Ellis
English
11/29/15
The Shallows
In this chapter of “The Shallows” Nicholas Carr talks about how the internet is not only altering current intellectual technologies, but it is “subsuming” them. Large quantities of people are going online for virtually all forms of entertainment. For example people in modern times would rarely read a book as a source of entertainment like they used to back in the days before the internet was created. This particular chapter also talks about how the internet can be a huge distraction at times. Another example of the disruptive nature of digital technologies is presented in the chapter, people attending a play were Twittering about it as its in progress. While viewer have gained the ability to share their experience immediately, are they missing out on the actual experience the event in person. I honestly question myself. “am I letting the internet control my life” ? and the answer to that question at most times is very much true.
In chapter âA Medium of the Most General Natureâ of the Book The Shallows by Nicolas Carr, Carr emphasizes on how internet is taking over all functions that was used to be done by different devices. Carr stated that âNext, the web began to take over the work of our traditional sound-processing equipment-radio and photographs and tape decksâ. This caught my attention because it shows that just simple webs are doing multiple things. People used to use different devices for different things but webs made it easier and everything came in one device. According to Carr âThe net differs from most of the mass media it replaces in an obvious and very important way: itâs bidirectionalâ. All computers are connected and they enable us to communicate with other people.
In chapter âA Medium of the Most General Natureâ of the Book The Shallows by Nicolas Carr, Carr emphasizes on how internet is taking over all functions that was used to be done by different devices. Carr stated that âNext, the web began to take over the work of our traditional sound-processing equipment-radio and photographs and tape decksâ. This caught my attention because it shows that just simple webs are doing multiple things. People used to use different devices for different things but webs made it easier and everything came in one device. According to Carr âThe net differs from most of the mass media it replaces in an obvious and very important way: itâs bidirectionalâ. All computers are connected and they enable us to communicate with other people.
In this Chapter” A Medium of the Most General Nature” talked about the way Alan Turin a Mathematician decoded the Enigma which was a type writer the Nazi used to send military commands. He later on kills himself by eating a cyanite laced apple. Carr also talked about how The internet is becoming more and more important everyday because we used it for multiple tasks instead of one like back than saying the internet is bidirectional.
Today we are here to discuss the fifth chapter in Nicholas Carr’s famed book, “The Shallows”. Chapter five talks about the times when computers back in their old age had stated to be manufactured and produced in much bigger numbers. Through this chapter you learn about a man named Alan Turing. Alan Turing was known to be a well received and well garnered mathematician. He solely played and increasing important role in World War II by cracking the codes on the Enigma. The Enigma itself was a type of typewriter where the enemies used encrypted words to send each other messages and war plans to put the opposing forces at a disadvantage. Due to Alan Turing’s efforts he was able to decipher these messages and the opposing forces once again had the upper advantage and won swiftly. Carr himself believes that the computer is just “bidirectional”.
In chapter five titled âA Medium Of The Most General Natureâ of Nicholas Carrâs The Shallow it talks about technology has changed the way we used to do activities to a new modern way. He goes on to say how all the physical hands on things we used to do has been transferred to the web, for instance he states, â The net differs from most of the mass media it replaces is an obvious and very important way: itâs bidirectional. We can send messages through the network as well as receive themâ. In other words what even the important things we rely on hands has been implemented to the web. Afterwards he talks about how reading is affected from a physical to digital view, he refers to Anne Mangen and what she says is the difference between, âthe sensory-motor experience of the materiality of a written work and the cognitive processing of the text content. The shift from paper to screen doesn’t just change the way we navigate a piece of writing. It also influences the degree of attention we devote to it and the depth of our immersion”. He refers to this because he wants to indicate how the web is affecting our behavior in simple as reading and writing.
In Chapter 5 of “The Shallows”, Nicholas Carr explains how the web is taking over our minds and how it is changing our way of learning and developing. Before, all our words used to be on paper, and when we used to read books, we would actually flip the page, whereas now reading is done through our ebooks and we touch the screen to flip the imaginary page. Instead of interacting with friends and family in public, we would rather be on our phones skimming through posts on Facebook and Instagram. Instead of going outside to play sports with our friends, we would rather tell them to play with us online on our ps4 or xbox 1. Instead of reading a physical paper article, we would rather go on google and read that article. Even shopping can be done online, we do not have to goto multiple stores to get things we need, because all the items we need to buy can be purchased in no less than 10 minutes. Most of our time is going towards looking at a screen for entertainment, because everything we want and need is there in one device.
In the fifth chapter of “The Shallows”, Nicholas Carr talks about the internet. He mentions its power over the human mind and in general. The web has power over us because it has become our go-to for many of our daily needs, from checking the weather to using a calculator to knowing the time. Because of this, it has a certain level of human dependency attached to it. The net has power in general because of its wide accessibility to people and its capacity to improve on any media platform. where a newspaper may be able to report a story, the internet may have photos, input from both sides of the story, and even real time updates.
In Chapter 5 of âThe Shallowsâ, Nicholas Carr explains how the web is taking over our minds and how it is changing the way of our learning and developing. Nicholas explains how the web has become our go-to source for not just one thing but multiple to almost everything. He also explains that the more information that’s given to us the more we spend on it. Also, in this chapter, he states that people tend to be on multiple devices at one time. From using the cell phone while watching tv to playing videos games while listening to music. Nicholas also talks about the evolution of books from the past years till now. Instead of the option of actual paper books, we now have books on digital devices such as ebook, nooks and online websites. We are reading more words than back then but lack reading actual words in pages. This is having an effect on the spaces we learn, interact and work spaces. Such as classrooms to work offices. And it’s also is having an effect on our way of reading.
In chapter five of The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, Carr speaks about the segmented nature of the online experience that “fragments content and disrupts concentration.” Digital media is also an “ecosystem of interruption technologies.” Carr also speaks about the internets ability to embed llinks to take you to search engines and gather more information on the word or words on which you clicked. The internet is becoming more and more involved with people. It goes into more depth that it should. People expect so much more from a computer that they should already know themselves. He says how people seem to be “multitasking” on more than one device. People go from their phones, to their, laptops, to their televisions, right back to their phones. People are also trying to rule out the use of books with the use of ebooks. Alot of people like to use the excuse that it is saving trees but the mater of the issue is that it is slowly and more slowly attracting us more and more to the technology we must be steering away from.
Chapter 5 of the Shallows By Nicholas Carr, Carr talks about how the Internet is now becoming the thing that we use for everything. It contains so many things such as a calculator, a map, a radio, just about everything is on your computer