Azares 1 Sarah Azares Professor Lago College Writing 16 October 2013 New Affecting the Old Lately there

has been a change in education where it is thought that using computers and electronic sources are a better way to teach children. Studies show that kids do actually seem to be improving, but couldnt there be another reason for the improvement? Are computers a better tool than books? New technologies can replace old technology; some will work with each other and even be an upgrade. Although after much use of these technologies, our way of using the old technology changes. With the internet you can talk to people, do work, pay bills, and do so much, but what about the old technology that helped the world in the past? Its not obsolete, but it is used less and less with the passing years. What does seem to be decreasing as Net use grows is the time we spend reading print publications (Carr 87). The more popular the computer became the less people using books, newspapers, and magazines. The news you would find is all over the internet because theres dozens of websites devoted to news, whether it is local or international. There are still a good amount of people using hard copies of writing. We still buy books and subscribe to magazines the old technologies often continue to be used for a long time, sometimes indefinitely (Carr 89). An example would be the use of the radio. Even with the

Azares 2 invention of iPods or Pandora, there are still radios used everywhere: at restaurants, in stores, and still in cars. Another insistence would be the telephone. Every household or business has one, but theres other things occasionally used in its place. The interactivities of the medium has also turned into the worlds meetinghouse, where people gate to chat, gossip, argue, show off, and flirt on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and all sorts of other social (and sometimes antisocial) network (Carr 85). On the other hand, some technologies are used together, and can be combined to make a new technology. It also seems that telephones have been used less due to new technologies. The telephone has been adapted to where you can see the person in communication. Well it is better known as video chatting, but it is still an effect of new technology on old. Another example of new technology changing the use of old technology is cars. Even formerly mechanical processes like driving a car have become collaborations with AI systems. At first it was the automatic braking system (Levy 211). Going back even later, cars had only the sole purpose of transportation. But after being able to make some technologies smaller, radios, phones, and GPSs have been formed into it. With that in mind, if for some reason the technology isnt working people may fall apart, Specifically with GPSs. Many rely on it to go place to place, but if its within reach, a problem may occur. There are those who cant read a map, and if they never paid attention on how to get place to place, they may end up lost without the GPS. Similarly to combining technologies, Ill use both paper books and websites to accomplish homework. Say I dont understand a word or phrase, I would type it in Bing or

Azares 3 Google and there will be my help. When typing a paper Id use my laptop for writing the paper but Ill need to refer back to the book for information. Using both together can improve my understanding but being able to concentrate on each can hinder my completion of work. On a computer its hard to focus on just the task at hand. I am so easily distracted when on a computer. I can quickly go on Facebook, or look up something random on Bing. Hours passed by and then I realized I was doing homework. I went back to the page and didnt have a clue where I left off. Where reading a book would serve only the purpose of the work. Unlike the internet, theres no adds or pop ups. There would be no way of getting distracted unless I put down the book. But being so used to technology, during my reading I quickly became bored. I wanted to do something else. I did put down the book and took a ten minute break before returning to homework. As Nicholas Carr explains, some much information is given all at once for people to be able to gasp it all. And sometimes we are lead to related subject but even so they can be far off from what we are really searching for. This is the cause of the difficulties with concentration (9091). Our focus is easily disrupted that even going back to a book can be hard. Our minds are accustomed to the side tracking that without it our attention to anything is very short. Though it seems new technologies are meant to replace other older technologies, but in fact many are used together. There are too many people using the older technologies for it to completely disappear. It is possible that child do better in school when using new technology because they grew up using it and have become accustomed to using computers rather than books.

Azares 4 Works Cited Carr, Nicholas G. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print. Levy, Steven. The AI Revolution is On. Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Eds. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. Pearson Education, Inc., 2013. 209-211. Print.