Internet smart?

"Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets’reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link." As clearly stated by Nicholas Carr, the internet has really taken over our everyday activities and focuses. We have become dependent on the internet to the point that we cant go without trying to "google" something or trying to look something up on the internet, because we all know its faster, simpler, and easier. But does such dependency ultimately lead us to more knowledge or does it simply makes us stupid? In my opinion i believe the internet has made us unconscious to certain things, in a way this seems ironic because there is so much information on the net. But it makes us stupider, because we stop to look at things in a substantive manner. Instead of trying to dig below the surface of a book, an idea or a concept, we find ourselves barely skimming the surface on the web. as clearly stated by Carr, we simply scan over articles and don really even read the whole article, we solely look for a simple fact and then boom were off to another page or another article to skim. Moreover, i also believe the internet makes us stupid because we can at any time just look something up without having to work hard to find it out , and maybe such condition leads us to not think of stuff as being so important or truly giving them the attention they deserve. We have become dependent on websites such as sparknotes, and have lost the capability of reading a book for itself and understanding it in our own way, instead we rely on the internet's interpretation of such book and we fall into their type of thinking. "They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." So what is the internet really doing to our brain, you decide for yourself?

"But the culture we have now fetishises the recipient of the text to the degree that they become a partial or whole author of it. " in other words what i think kirbys is putting out, is that our society has become the creators of what is happening in the world today. we are the sole producers of all the technological phenomenon that is abducting our every form of expression or desire. It is crazy to think that we are the ones who have created devices that are so technologically advanced that someday they could surpass and even ultimately take control of our society more than they already have today. Moreover, i like how he mentions the fact that "By definition, pseudo-modern cultural products cannot and do not exist unless the individual intervenes physically in them. " In essence we are the consumers, we are what make the corporate technological world keep going and going. From ipods, to macs, to digital cameras, to cellphones, we are the ones who choose to buy these products and therefore we solely contribute to the control they have over us. It almost seems as if you are not accepted in the society were you aren't kept up with the latest fashion, or the newest device, because that's how we have formed our society to be. I mean what would happen if everybody stopped buying ipods? what would be of our life on earth? would music be dead as we know it? long trips in the car be worthless? How is it that we can live in a world that supports the "powerful machines" that are taking control of us and yet we cant even realize that we are the generators of such happenings. people seemed to be shocked about how advanced we have become , and they seem to a point to be scared of what could happen regarding this knowledge, but yet we sit here unconsciously engulfing all these items , we would really fear if we took time to think about what it is that we are really doing? What are we doing by creating these technological phenomenons?

The book Cat's Cradle so far seems to hold a lot of Postmodernist views.In by barely beginning the book that postmodernist views are held in this book. For example, just as in the book "postmodernism for beginners", it is said that we are arranged in different interest groups or to say different clicks, cat's cradle holds the same idea. For example this shared idea becomes clear when the author points out,"We bokononists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God's will without ever discovering what they are doing. such a team is called a Karass by Bokonon..." Therefore it becomes clear that author of cats' cradle also believes that we are put into different groups, or that we in essence choose to be a part of the group we feel more comfortable and accepted by. We are a bunch of individuals packed into teams trying to serve a cause or reach an ultimate goal, but that is if there is one? Moreover in the book postmodernism for beginners it is said that science is really just science for its own sake, and that therefore science does not unravel a universal truth, it is just a part of narratives and gran narratives but there is not one absolute fact that makes everything the truth in science. This idea is further exemplified in the books cat's cradle by the obvious scientific characterization of the main character Felix Hoenniker. He is the constructor of the atomic bomb but " he just wasn't interested in people" and when he is told that "science has now known sin" he simply responds "what is sin"? therefore this all helps to parallel what is being said in the postmodernist view, because here he is being a significant scientific figure, but he is not at all concerned for people and he also seems to not have a clue about morality, he is amoral. Moreover, his lack of concentration on constructing the bomb shows that he really has no interest and is just doing it to do it. therefore science, in this book, is seen as again being done for its own sake not for the better of the people, and it really holds no universal truth to which we can gain. All in all cat's cradle exemplifies several postmodernist views.