Article 1 Response

I found this reading overall fairly interesting. There were some parts in the middle when he would give examples from the 1800's that I found myself trailing off. Towards the end though I noticed I wasn't thinking of anything else but the reading. I normally do that when the reading is completely boring to me. This article talked about computers and computer science which are two things I’m very interested in. I think that contributed to the attention I gave it, because this article was way too long. The main point is that he believes the only reason the people of Google made it the way it is was to promote advertising. He says “The faster we surf across the Web—the more links we click and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements. Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.” They want us to become “skimmers” and jump from page to page. They have no intention for us to linger on long articles and get deep in our thoughts. They are purposely making us distracted and trying to get us to lose our ability to read long passages. He talks about how many people believe that Google is the reason not many people can concentrate on writings anymore. We are easily distracted because it is what we are used to now. I think this is true. Google is always colored with pretty advertisements or better articles on the next link. We are so accustomed to these fast paced, quick readings that when we come across something with length, we don’t know how to stay on track. They have almost rewired our brains to think completely different. We no longer have the ability to think like we used to. Our brains are programmed Google now. Clever move, guys.