Is Google Making Us Stupid?

I was more than excited to read this article, mainly because anything about the internet is something I can easily relate to. The internet is a part of my every day life -- I use it for school, social networking, shopping, recieving emails. . .just about everything. While it is such a useful and convenient resource, I am fully aware I spend far too much time online. (Facebook has become my safehaven.) I was surprised to read however, that the internet could be changing the way we think. Maybe there truly can be too much of a good thing.

Since about 7th grade, the internet has become a necessary resource in my life. Research projects that had once meant class periods in the library now meant periods in the computer lab. Instead of having to search shelf-by-shelf for information, the internet did the work for us. In a matter of seconds, hundreds of links were presented to us; all the facts we needed were just a few clicks away. While this was so much easier than having to do the work by hand, I realized that it wasn't as beneficial to me as a student. Researching online provided me with more precise answers, but I was missing all of the information in between.

Mr. Fischer always askes his students if they're learning the material in his class or really learning it. When it comes down to it, most of the students (myself included) aren't actually learning anything, just temporarily sticking it in their minds until after they've taken the test. Both cramming and the "hunt-and-peck" method have become common ways of quickly filling up your short-term memory with information. Nowadays, it's not out of the ordinary to learn information piece-by-piece instead of looking at the big picture. Contemplating has turned into calculating and pondering into processing.

Before reading this article, I hadn't made the connection that maybe the internet could be what's caused me to be so distracted in recent years. Since middle school, I've noticed a lot of changes in my homework/test-taking/researching habits. It takes me so much additional time to do my homework/tests. My mind goes off on tangents; I constantly get bored with what I'm doing. Could this be because of too much time on the World Wide Web? Has the internet trained my mind to function in this staccato matter? Ironically, as interesting as I found the article, I couldn't read more than 1-2 pages without getting distracted. My mind was in other places.

I wish people weren't so dependent on the internet. If it were up to me, I would get rid of it altogether. (Yes, it's made things more convenient for us, but on the whole, it's hurt us more than it's helped us.) That would never happen of course, because we as a society rely too much on it. Hypothetically, I wonder if my scatterbrain could ever mend itself from the evident effects of the World Wide Web. I'll have to Google it. . .

Skunk Dreams

After printing out "Skunk Dreams" by Louise Erdrich and reading the title, I was left quite confused. I read the first paragraph and I still had no idea where the next six pages were going to lead me -- or how they were going to relate to smelly little rodents and their dreams in any way.
Automatically, I thought to myself, What would skunks dream about? Perhaps they dreamt of scampering around, spraying their putrid stench on everything in sight..Or perhaps their dreams were more like that of humans. (What would a skunk nightmare be like?) I couldn't begin to imagine what laid in the depths of their seemingly small minds. It wasn't until I had reached the end of the article that I realized the message that Erdrich was trying to convey (see things from other perspectives) and the relevance of the title.
While I enjoyed the passage, at times it seemed too detailed. It was stocked with unnecessary details/specifics that almost acted as fillers. At some points, however, descriptions were perfectly executed; it astounded me how detailed the author remembered her dream of Corbin Park. Most of the time, I don't even remember my dreams; when I do, they are so vague that I have a hard time making sense of them the following morning.
However, I do like to think about dreams and what they mean. What is reality and what isn't? Is anything reality? The dream-life concept makes me wonder. Why do we dream?
Why do we live?
The best explanation I can come up with for having dreams is to prepare ourselves. Sleep is simply eight hours of our day that we can let our mind rest..and wander. Dreams let us see the outcomes of potential situations; they let us test our boundaries. They might warn us of things in our near future; they might help us make decisions. Dreams let us "try before we buy." In a way, they give us a "test drive" for the real world.
The passage closed with Erdrich talking about how humans should think about life from a skunk's perspective -- or any other being for that matter. It's good to see things from another point of view in order to enlighten your own outlook on life. As Erdrich said, "The obstacles we overcome define us." Maybe we need to look at things from a different standpoint in order to overcome the obstacles we face.