How Far We've Come

In our new age of google and this blogging thing, our class has been one of many things to adapt and use this "progress" to our advantage. The argument that the way we aquire knowledge has fundamentally changed is very interesting, and I as a 16 year old interprets this claim differently than someone who grew up learning how to "deep read." As we began reading "Self-Reliance," I began to notice what exactly Nicholas Carr was talking about in his article. Deep reading requires a lot of concentration and I believe it is an aquired skill. That is why our older generations have began to notice this change in thinking behavior. For us kids, this change has been implanted in our brains much earlier, and therefore, I accept the fact that I prefer short, concise pieces of information. I am used to having not necessarily a shorter attention span, but one that calls for a different medium to process information as efficiently.

Progress?

Our new unit in American Studies is (surprisingly) again extremely relavent to the current issues of our world. The word progress has been thrown around a lot in the past week or two. Our first African-American president is progress we are all very proud of as americans. In class, our discussion about progress was at first very centered around technology, something that has drastically changed since our parents' time. But I think progress can go a little deeper than just what gadgets we can now fit in our pockets. Societal progress is something that I believe is much more important in a historical sense. Not only does it reveal the change society has gone through by what has become commonplace, but this kind of progress is easily documented by benchmarks we as a community have reached. For example, our first black president being elected is a very striking and emotional event that will definately be remembered for centuries. But any barriers (race/gender) being broken in things like sports or politics are direct benchmarks that truly reflect the progress of a society.