According to a new and recent study, 92 percent of college students preferred to read the obsolete way , in print, with less distractions. On the other hand, 67 percent preferred digital reading; however, more distractions were encountered. Ultimately what is at stake here is whether digital reading will impact or impair our minds in the near future. Many people assume that, since book sales are rapidly decreasing, we think on how digital reading is increasing and how it has affected us so far. The web is considered a blessing and a curse. The Internet has changed the way we read, analyze, and comprehend.
Digital reading has a negative effect on anyone who uses it. Whether or not you want to admit it is up to you. Unfortunately, digital reading is harmful to the human mind in many ways. According to Bruce Friedman, a daily and formal blogger, blogs of the use of computers in medicine; however, he also elaborates on how the Internet has transformed his intellectual habits. Friedman states, “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print” (qtd. in Carr). In other words, Friedman suggests online reading prohibits the brain to fully understand what one is reading at the time, due to the fact of the many distractions. I personally agree with this statement because the Internet has had a way of manipulating my mind. I attempt to bypass reading long articles as well, especially online. When I am online, I tend to focus on other things rather than what I am reading and it causes me to forget what the story is about. As a result, I have to reestablish what I read by starting over. As stated in, Is Google Making Us Stupid, a media theorist, Marshall McLuhan points out in the 1960’s, “Media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski” (qtd. in Carr). McLuhan’s point is that, the more we use the Internet, the more we have to combat the urge to stay awake and focus on a specific piece of writing. I agree with this statement because the Internet is consistently a supplier of the things we need; however, the downside to it is that our mind looks at the Internet differently. Since the Internet is prompt in providing us with the information we need, our minds tend to think the exact same thing. As a result, skimming what we are supposed to be reading occurs. Regarding these two examples, the two compare with each other. Both articles illustrate how digital reading has effected the way we read today. Simultaneously, both examples from the article, Is Google Making Us Stupid, tell how digital reading is harmful to an individual.
On the other hand, digital reading can be helpful in some ways; however, I disagree. A 2015 study by the German educator, Johannes Naumann, questions if on-screen reading was as slow as paper reading, would comprehension improve? Naumann gave a group of high-school students the job of tracking down certain pieces of information on websites; he found that the students who regularly did research online, in other words, the ones who expected Web pages to yield up useful facts, were better at this task than students who used the Internet mostly to send email, chat, and blog (qtd. in La Farge). I disagree with this statement and study. Normally, research is done online, because it requires one to dig deeper, such as, into databases. People who use computers tend to learn more than others; however, this is misleading. Just as computers, there are historical books, encyclopedias that help with research, not just the Internet. A person who uses books more than computers obviously has a more different knowledge than a person who uses the Internet. In the article, “Plagiarism is Dead”, Susanne Murphy suggests, “Online reading is constructive and dynamic: while reading for information, clicking across and through a variety of embedded and suggested links, each reader creates a unique (and transient) new text whose reality is physical only in a ‘follow the clicks’ sense” (Murphy). I notably disagree with this statement. Online reading is however, not constructive and dynamic. Dynamic also means productive or active. In my opinion, online reading is not beneficial. Online reading makes me lethargic, because I am consistently looking at the screen, attempting to stay focused.
As an illustration of how digital reading is harmful, during my senior year in high school, the administration allowed the use of iPads, Kindles, and other forms of tablets to only the upperclassmen. In order to decrease the buying of new books every year, we were allowed to download books off of an application. The idea of using tablets eventually failed. As for me, if I became disinterested with the class, I began to play games. In my AP English class, we normally acted out the plays and had a class discussion. During this time, we were assigned to different parts. Usually, I became distracted because I did not have a part to play at the time, and I invested in playing games. Digital reading is very harmful. When we are supposed to be learning, something else attracts our attention. That is why, I prefer to read from paper. I would rather annotate and highlight on paper than to do so on a computer.
Consequently, technology is advancing slowly whether we like it or not. Therefore, as we move forward, learning and technology should link together and become one. The administrators of the education system needs to come to the realization that it is impossible to do both online reading and paper reading. It is extremely unsettling. In order for teachers of colleges and schools to adapt to the future of digital reading, we first cannot read elongated articles online. We will never get it done or do it the way teachers would require us to. We will not comprehend how we are supposed to. Technology has developed into a bigger spectrum, in other words, it has become fast-moving and swift. The administrators of the education system must adapt to these changes or in the future, the reading attention of children will eventually begin to deteriorate. Bill Gates once said, “Technology is a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.”