Second Gutenberg Shift

I strongly agree with Kevin Kelly’s comments that we are moving towards a Second Gutenberg Shift.

It is evident in every day life that we rely on technology now more than ever, instead of writing a letter you write an email, even this course instead of having a formal class we have an internet course reading all the materials from the internet and watching lecture videos online.

The use of computers is the reason that the ‘Second Gutenberg Shift’ is happening, it is to convenient to sit at home and send email’s rather than write a letter or Skype a friend who lives 20 minutes away rather than going to see them. I am a example of the 2^nd Gutenberg Shift, I haven’t read a book in the real sense in at least a few years, I don’t find them interesting anymore I would much rather watch a movie or if everyone tells me how interesting a book is I will wait for a movie to be made rather than read it.

I can relate to the article is Google Making us Stupid? http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/

When trying to research for assignments the internet has made it easy to just use search engines to find information that would have taken days previously in a library. The article also mentions the inability of people to stay focused when reading articles online, there are constant distractions online for example facebook makes noises notifying you of an online chat you are having which is often kept open in another window. When reading a book you are not confronted by these distractions, the distractions are if any usually people talking to you whilst you are reading, if they can see your reading you are usually left alone. Ultimately I feel as if Google is making us stupid; but visuality has many advantages that have not been mentioned in the articles. The use of skype and others allow many businesses and individuals to have communications/meetings that otherwise would not be possible.