Final

To find the first article written by Clay Shirky, I first went to Clark College website and navigated to the library. From there, I selected Proquest for a deep web search. I checked off “full sources” and searched “Clay Shirky AND Wall Street Journal”. The source that I found was titled “Does the Internet Make You Smarter? Amid The Silly Videos and Spam are the Roots of a New Reading and Writing Culture, Says Clay Shirky.” The article is dated 1 day earlier than that provided in the instruction. I presume this is because the Proquest article is based from the Wall Street Journal (Online) which is often printed early. Not only is the writer of this article an author of two books on this subject but also his website http://www.shirky.com states that he holds “a joint appointment at NYU, as an Associate Arts Professor at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) and as a Distinguished Writer in Residence in the Journalism Department. I am also a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and was the Edward R. Murrow Visiting Lecturer at Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy in 2010.” This, along with the fact that this information was printed in the Wall Street Journal offers credibility to the Authority of the source. The Wall Street Journal is a primary source and does not offer any citations or sources used. The purpose of this article is to describe how the media is changing and people will soon need to be educated on how to extract information from it as was done in the past. The article appears to be even, Shirky expresses opinion from multiple sides and the article is current.

To find the Nicholas Carr article, I google searched “Nicholas Carr Does the internet.”  From here I ended on the Wall Street Journal (online). Nicholas Carr has written a best seller by the name of The Shallow,: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains. I believe this offers credibility to him. The article is printed in a primary source, The Wall Street Journal, which is considered reputable and credible. The purpose of this article is to explain how learning via internet is less productive than traditional methods. This article is pretty on sided and is presented more as an argument. I have no reason to believe the author is bias. On June 5, 201o, this article was published therefore it is current.

In the article “Does the Internet Make You Dumber?” written by Nicholas Carr and published by The Wall Street Journal on June 5, 2010, Carr writes about how the internet is making us less productive in our learning. Carr describes in his article studies that show that internet learning is impaired by “distractions” such as peer to peer web communication applications, and also a loss in academic performance from “wired” students. Carr encourages readers to more frequently learn from traditional methods to develop a “disciple” only found in learning slowly.

                The most compelling argument to me was the reiterations of Michael Merzenich by Carr. I find it hard to believe that the internet can rewire our brains but he offers evidence.  After swapping the nerves up in the hand of a monkey, it brain learned to rework it. Now that I analyze this, I’m not sure why this is “deadly.” This is short term evolution and it happens every day. So maybe I don’t agree with the argument, but it got me thinking.

                I think this argument is bologna. Since I have switched to the weekend degree program my work load has tripled but yet my grades have been exceptional. Books make me fall asleep and class is too auditory for me. Regardless, about three years ago I was looking for a good picture of a nuclear power plant and came across the Chernobyl disaster. I had never heard of this before so I read all about it. How would I have learned this if the information wasn’t at my finger tips on a Friday night? I have ended up doing the same with the Civil War, WWI,WWII etc. Frankly, I take offence when I hear that the internet makes people stupid. If it wasn’t for the internet, I would be stupid!