The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discuessed

Mary Wollstonecraft writes a very challenging and hard to read essay regarding the rights of women and how poorly they are looked upon. Well...that's what I got out of it anyway. Heading into this article, I already had a bad attitude due to the length. I had a very hard time reading this because I often became distracted and quite frankly...the way things were worded was very hard for me to understand. Many of the words I had not heard of before and therefore I was left with many questions.

However, while reading this essay, I discovered that Wollstonecraft was a very opinionated woman and had much to say. She new what she was talking about and often questioned and disagreed with several other intelligent writers. She heavily argued the fact that woman need to be respected and they should not be looked down upon. Others wrote that woman were put on this earth to obey and please men while maintaing an innocent personality and in return women would get stability and protection. This was something that I did not agree with. Wollstonecraft had a numerous amount of great facts and reasons why this is entirely not true. She believed heavily that women were not put on this earth just to serve men and argued for the equality of women.

Wollstonecraft really emphasized the idea that women need to gain the respect and to just be given a chance. I agree with her when she writes, "But, Whether she be loved or neglected, her first wish should be to make herself respectable." I really liked this quote because it made complete sense to me. I think the world has this idea of the ideal "woman" and they look upon us in ways that I, myself, find disgusting.

I was often lost in this article and I found it to be kinda boring and very long, but I did learn some really good things that made me really think about myself and other women that I may know. I really liked the facts that she stated and how opinionated Wollstonecraft was, I just wish the read was easier to understand that way I could have learned a lot more on how to achieve equality in woman. Overall, I guess I would say this was not my favorite article that we have read.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Almost everyone today spends a fraction of their time on the computer, whether it is to type up a paper for homework, email a friend back, to change their facebook status, or maybe all three. However, these things could not be possible without the world wide web...otherwise known as the internet. Most people, like myself, go on the computer with a goal set in mind, though, after just a few minutes, this wonderful, mind boggling invention takes over and our once goal is the last thing on our mind.

Nicholas Carr, the author of this essay, writes how the internet effects our daily lifestyle, the way we think, and even our very own personalities. Carr touches on the fact that many individuals are unable to focus on long stories, novels, and essays. He makes a great point when he writes:

"My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I'd spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That's rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, and begin looking for something else to do."

After reading this statement, I was really able to relate to what was said. There is rarely a time where my focus is spent fully on just one thing. I'm always multi tasking and I seem to always have trouble to just sit down and read like Carr has proposed.

Carr also writes about the invention of the mechanical clock and how instead of listening to our bodies, we now have a man-made schedule that tells us when to wake up, eat lunch or dinner, go to work, and even go to bed. Everything we do is focused on the clock, "We stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock" Carr claims.

Besides for the the invention of the clock, Carr writes how media is changing as well. Since our lives so heavily rely on the internet, the way media delivers its information has to change as well. "Television programs add text crawls and pop-ups, magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-browse info-snippets" Carr says. If everything were not to be shortened, it would be "less efficient" and pages would just be skipped over.

My favorite quote of all in this reading: "The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster procesor and a bigger hard drive." This is such a great point.

There is something to be said about this article. Nicholas Carr really proves some great points that many individuals like you and me would not realize unless it is thrown at our faces. It's sad to think that everything we do relates back to the internet and the world wide web. We lose ourselves in technology and many of us don't even know who their real self is. We are lost without facebook, and devastated without our phones. It is sad to think about. However, on the flip side, the internet and further technology has advanced our world tremendously and without it, we would not even be close to where we are today. We are not only able to communicate with people around the world, but we are able to invent and create an endless amount of fantastic things.

I personally think we rely on the internet and other technologies too much, and should try to take a step back and focus on other important things.