tylerdennison-blog

[tylerdennison-blog]

Tumblr post #6: Is the internet making us dumb?

I believe that the internet has positive and negative effects on our brain.  However, I do agree with Carr in his points that it is interfering with our abilities to focus, to reflect thoughtfully, and think critically/deeply.  We now have issues staying on one line of thought, partially due to the internet.  He claims that our minds are staring to think and take on the logic of computers.  I do see this, especially in our generation.  It seems that instead of people specializing in specific knowledge, we tend to have more pieces general knowledge, about many different things.  Carr claims that it negatively affects our attention span.  He also claims that the more one multi tasks, the worse we actually get at it.  It has caused us to skim articles and what not, rather than actually think about them in depth as a whole.  I side more with Carr and I agree with all of the points that he brought up.

[tylerdennison-blog]

Tumblr post 4, Gaming culture

Gaming culture is basically an entire new online world where people problem solve and interact with others virtually.  I don't really play video games because I get bored after playing them for about twenty minutes.  Although video games can be fun, I view them as a waste of time, and one of the numerous factors of obesity in the American society. Staring at a screen all day also causes damage to a person's eyes.  Gee compares real life to video games. He says you can apply what you learn from video games to any real life situation. I disagree with this, I believe video games tend to dumb people down rather than make them smarter. When I was in elementary school I would play video games somewhat often. Looking back now, it seems as if it was a foolish waste of time when i could have been doing any other activity.  I see very little applications for video games and school.  I guess the thing i find most interesting is simply the fact that i disagree with nearly all of Gee's theories.  Both Gee and McGonial both believe that gaming can have positive effects on the real world, I don't agree.  I have actually heard of studies which show that violent video games is positively correlated with children being more violent. Gee and McGonial both seem to value gaming culture, however, I do not.