Internet

The Google Effect

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In Nicholas Carr’s 2008 article for The Atlantic titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” he presents the argument that the meteoric rise of the Internet has sapped the collective attention span of the human race, negatively impacting the way people find and ingest information, as well as how deeply they engage with their chosen material. While the title of the article is an oversimplification, Carr quite effectively posits that the overwhelming availability of information provided to the world by the Web strains one’s ability to concentrate on any one piece for too long. He relates the decline of his own attention span when it comes to reading, stating that he used to “spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose,” but now finds that his “concentration starts to drift after two or three pages.” Continue reading →

Kids These Days (And The Overprotective, Overbearing Parents That Made Them This Way)

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Today’s population of new-age parents has given birth to a doomed generation. Kids are now tumbling out of the womb with connected devices in tow, and are then hovered over and doused with hand sanitizer by their obsessive “helicopter mommies”. They’re coddled and reassured that they’re special (they’re not) and entitled (also not), and most obnoxiously of all, are taught to be victims, and to be offended by everything. They’re given increasingly stupid names, and are not taught to think or stand up for themselves. They’re taught that winning is not important (it is), and as a result, everyone is given a participation trophy just for showing up and breathing. They have access to a multitude of screens that present them with a virtual reality that precludes them from ever having to go outside. Kids that are inclined to defend themselves are afraid to fight back in battles that they didn’t even initiate, for fear of getting suspended or expelled by schools that harbor overzealous “zero tolerance” policies. When I was in grade school, a bully was the kid who physically beat you up on the playground. He (or she) was the punk who made you fear for your well-being in a very tangible way. Continue reading →