9/28/09 The World is Flat

Friedman again reveals an amazing conflict that occurs with the use of technology. Believing that people now want specific information too fast and too easy, he believes that little is being done to obtain this information. I agree as more and more people are using search engines such as Google and yahoo, very few people are attempting to obtain information on new topics instead of just searching them up. As Yahoo's co founder Jerry Yang stated in the book "Today their attitudes are more presumptive. They presume that the information they're looking for us certainly available..." (180). However, I am curious as to why Friedman does not pick a side on whether this is good or bad. He clearly likes that people now can easily have huge amounts of information in a short amount of time and that this is a good "force that flattens" the world. Still, he never can decide to himself whether or not all of this new technology will keep benefiting us. He leaves it up to the reader. Friedman chooses to write an unbiased book which is great because a person can read it and then decide for themselves about the issues.