StumbleUpon is a site
that lets you rate pages, choose the type of content you want to see, and then
suggests other similar pages for you. You can also use a friend’s StumbleUpon
account to surf through their preferences. In a way, it’s TiVo 2.0, helping
make the vast stretches of the internet easier to digest by telling you what you like. This method of maintaining pre-established interests is detrimental to personal growth and
discovery, since users are continually exposed to the same division of
information. This allows the account holder to simply stay in their comfortable
“box” of interests and never branch out into new, exciting, potentially enlightening
information. If someone wants to spend the whole day reading articles about a
political issue, StumbleUpon will provide an endless supply of articles with a
similar skew that the reader had previously preferred. There is nothing
mentally stimulating or challenging about finding information in this way,
seeing as the finder isn’t even doing the finding himself. In turn, the mind
cannot create new and creative connections to information, since all the
information provided is already intertwined for the reader.
Easily
accessed and connected information like this has a significant consequence:
reduced memory. As stated in The Shallows by Nicholas Carr (2010), the internet
has taken over as our new memory. There isn’t a need to remember details of
an issue, or anything for that matter, when it can easily be retrieved online
with negligible effort (pg. 180-184). The mind now forgets much more quickly
than in the era before websites like StumbleUpon, which is certainly not a
positive side effect. All in all, this
website is simply a tool for laziness and unimaginative discovery.
I have to agree with this side of the discussion. All too often, I have caught myself and seen others repeatedly press a key on the keyboard, cycling through sites, videos, and pictures while trying to satisfy our brain's thirst for true knowledge. Every now and then, we'll pass by something funny or interesting and let out a small laugh or grunt. This scares me.
ReplyDeleteCarr implies that without a need for memory, our minds lose their edge, dumbing our brain (and potentially physical?) functions to a monotony equivalent to the machines that cause it. A society of individuals with one-track minds will lose its creativity and understanding. What are the implications? Will we trust our computers more than others? Than government? We need to reverse some of the trends of this tech-age and prevent the mush that our minds are becoming.
I politely disagree. In the vast bog of the internet, StumbleUpon can be like a compass, guiding you toward more focused points of interest. Rather than contenting yourself with the same websites you already know, you can discover sites that allow you to pursue valuable interests and increase your knowledge. I learned of the website in this class. When I went home to try out the technology, the number of genuinely informative sites that I was able to find renewed my faith in the internet. All too often, I have caught myself wasting time on a virtual "search for knowledge" that turned up nil-- not even a laugh or a grunt. StumbleUpon can make these casual quests for knowledge far more exciting and enriching.
ReplyDeleteSometime we do not think to Google our own name, or our family members, or friends - its what ya bring to the table and if you realize what it means.
DeleteI will also have to disagree. I always like to take a step back and look at what human beings were actually evolved to do. We weren't necessarily designed to have the skills to remember every team and player in the NFL, NHL, NBA, etc., or the aptitude to navigate a manmade cyberspace. But because we're sentient beings, or "wise man," we are capable of doing all these things that we weren't really destined to do. So having a "cheatsheet" to help us navigate the internet for the things that interest us the most, in my opinion, is not really doing any harm to our cognitive skill/development skills. With that being said, we do live in a world where the internet is an integral part of our lives, so knowing how to use it is important. If we can responsibly use this technology and never depend on it, we can maintain our grasp of how the internet works while having a shortcut to our interests.
ReplyDelete