In the three essays, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Carr, “Selections from Into the Wild”, and Gladwell’s “Power of Context” human nature and individual personality are portrayed and changed in different profound ways. There is always a factor in the setting around the characters in these readings. The two important aspects is the context of time and social freedom and obligation.
Time seems to be moving faster and faster everyday and inevitably, is changing the way people act. In the reading, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr talks about how his attention span had been slowly receding and claims that he is no longer able to lengthy books or passages. He blames this lack of concentrations on Google. Google and other inventions of technology were made in the world to make things more convenient and less time consuming. This was Google’s purpose, so now people do not need to go to the libraries and archives to find out the information that they need or that interests them. The context of time in modern society makes people feel rushed and anxious. humans are constantly surrounded by technology these days, and technology is the context in which people are consumed and overwhelmed in. Technology leads to faster processes, which means the context people live in is about speed and quickness. This context of time people live in gives light to things like Google, which will ultimately save them time rather than going out to search for the same piece of information. Carr’s habit of now skimming comes from the same idea of time. He said he once scuba dove into the ocean of words and knowledge, and know he quickly skims across the surface with his jetski. The different between scubadiving and jetskiing is time. Alothough scuba diving is more profound and enlightening, jet skiing is fast and thrilling.
The sense of feeling rushed can make people act extremely differently. A simple aspect like time changes in an environment, and it can make that person act in a completely opposite way than what is expected. “Both a priest and a Levite-worthy, pious men-came upon the man but did not stop, ‘passing by on the other side.’ The only man to help was a Samaritan-the member of a despised minority –who ‘went up to him and bound up his wounds’ and took him to an inn (Gladwell 163).” The type of men, moral and self-righteous, ignored to help someone in dire need of assistance which is contrary to thought. While someone from a detested minority went and helped the man as much as he could. This story was recreated into an experiment by the scientists to test their theory.The Power of Context, which is based on the surrounding conditions, circumstances, or events that form the environment, challenges and changes the person whom they thought they were. This suggests that the pious men most likely had somewhere to be, while the despised Samaritan, who had nowhere to be, saved the dying man. This is the basis of an experiment held out by a university for a group of seminarians. Seminarians were chosen as the focus group because they are the type of people to most likely to show a gesture of kindness or to help whoever needs it. “In some of the cases, as he sent the students on their way, the experimenter would look at his watch and say, ‘Oh, you’re late. They were expecting you a few minutes ago. We’d better get moving.’ In other cases, he would say, ‘it will be a few minutes before they’re ready for you, but you might as well head over now (Gladwell 164).’” Different conditions in the environment affect the behavior of humans in a subconscious way. The researchers were trying to give off two different vibes from the experiment: feeling rushed and having leisure. The factor of change in the environment was time. The feeling of being rushed or having no time made 90% of the people pass the sick, helpless man. At the same time, only 37% of the people who knew they had time to spare passed the needy, coughing man. All it took was a sense of time to turn the good-hearted seminarians to overlook their morals and teachings. This is a clear example of the environment making the person in a certain situation. The context of the situation was time and the feeling of being rushed which made a majority of the students act oppositely as they would have.
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