Assignment Paper

-Watch the following video which contains an interview with Nicholas Carr whose text is What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brain: the Shallows. As you do so, keep in mind not only Carr’s comments on McLuhan, but also what you can recall regarding McLuhan from the content in this unit. Be sure to explore this connection in your reflection on the Post-Literate generation.
-Write a two-page personal reflection on Carr’s commentary. In your reflection consider some of the following questions. Think as carefully about the questions as you can. It’s not necessary to answer several questions if you wish to explore one or two in detail with references to your own experiences.
-Show how Carr’s thoughts are the natural outcomes of theories on technology that had been laid down decades earlier by Marshall McLuhan.
-How does the style of the video exemplify the distractions that Carr discusses? Refer to specific elements in the video, and suggest whether or not you (or possibly older or younger viewers) might have been taken off-message by the video’s design.
-Do you agree that being connected delivers the benefits that Carr claims? Can you think of other advantages that he doesn’t mention?
-How do you feel about the claim that we are no longer capable of “deep” thinking? Do you agree with this claim? How do we know when we are thinking “deeply”?
-What is important about deep thinking if we know more than we ever have, but in a general sense? Why should anyone think deeply?
-Do you feel that it’s important to “de-connect” from time to time? When you are not using devices, does your thinking differ, or are you so much a product of new technologies that you think only about resuming your use of the devices?
-Is Carr’s commentary on multi-tasking correct in your view?
-The purpose of this assignment is to show you’ve thought deeply about McLuhan’s ideas, about the changes in society, and about your experience and observation of it. (How fitting that you are asked to exercise your literacy skills in response to these questions!)