You wouldn’t let someone steal your things, so why would you let your phone steal your mind away? In “How Smartphones Hijack our Minds”, Nicholas Carr how phones affect people’s minds and their cognitive ability. He states that as people become more dependent on their phones, their intellect weakens. He does this by his use of strong diction, comparisons such as personification and analogy and finally statistical data in order to support and strengthen his claim. Throughout the article, Carr uses powerful yet distressing diction to explain to readers how phones are negatively affecting their users. Carr says, “Just suppressing the desire to check our phone, which we do routinely and subconsciously throughout the day can debilitate our thinking. …show more content…
By using this word choice he is able to express how strongly phones can cripple our ability to think. Carr also states: “The evidence that our phones can get inside our heads so forcefully is unsettling. It suggests that our thoughts and feelings, far from being sequestered in our skulls, can be skewed by external forces we’re not even aware of. But the findings shouldn’t be a surprise.” Carr’s usage of contrasting diction shows listeners the power behind how phones affect us. The word unsettling implies that something is unknown, that something is foreign to you. But after stating ‘the findings shouldn’t be a surprise’ shows that even subconsciously people should have understood that the findings were not new information. By using this word …show more content…
Carr states phones are “your teacher, secretary, your confessor, your guru.” By personifying the phone in this way, he shows that our phones are almost human-like in the way that they can get our attention and keep it.“Imagine combining a mailbox, a newspaper, a TV, a radio, a photo album, a public library and a boisterous party attended by everyone you know, and then compressing them all into a single, radiant object. That is what a smartphone represents to us,” as Carr compares a multitude of useful objects to a phone. By comparing all of these objects to a phone, Carr shows that all of the objects he shows the amount of utility a phone can bring and its importance in everyday life during this time. He also indirectly compares your phone affecting our brains to “sapping your powers of discernment.” By making this comparison, it makes our phones look more like a burden that takes away from our lives instead of an improvement that makes them
Today’s world has become so dependent on technology that people can hardly be away from their cell phone. In Fahrenheit 451, Mildred portrays one of those people. In the article, “Have we become too dependent on smart phone technology?” a woman and her friends test just how long they can be away from their cell phones. “‘The first 30 minutes to an hour all we talked about was how we missed our phones,’ Erebia said” (Ortega 1). The quote goes to show that people can hardly have conversation with out their security blanket, better known as their smart phone. “Smart phone technology is a double-edged sword when it comes to communication. Some people may be so engrossed in their phones that they would rather focus on that than on the person right in front of them – this is the bad – he said” (Ortega 2). At the end of this article everyone can agree that technology has a power over our lives.
In the article entitled, “Our Cell Phones Ourselves”, Christine Rosen describes how cell phones have changed the way we communicate. Rosen tells the readers the main purpose for cell phone use in the past, versus present day. Her purpose is to make society aware of how cell phones have influenced our lives in order to inspire change as to how we view our cell phones. Rosen directs her writing to everyone in the present day by describing the negative results of cell phone use and how it impacts our lives and those around us. Without a doubt, cell phones are going to be a part of our world, but it is the responsibility of every cell phone owner to exercise self control and understand that a cell phone is nothing more than a device.
...ysterious technology. When referencing the new technology he states, “They supply the stuff for thought, but they also shape the process of thought” (6). Carr’s main point is the effect of technology, especially the Internet, is changing the programming of the brain.
Nicholas Carr wrote ‘How Smartphones Hijack Our Minds’ published in the Wall Street Journal in 2017. Carr believes that as the brain becomes reliant on smartphones the intellect diminishes.
Thesis: Twenge affectively uses emotional appeals to persuade her readers into believing that the excessive use of smartphone has ruined a generation.
“When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances --- literary types, most of them --- many say they are having similar experiences” (Carr 315). Clive Thompson also elates some words that Nicholas Carr wrote in, The Shallows, “The quality of our thought, as a species, rose in tandem with the ascendance of slow-moving, linear print, and began declining with the arrival of the zingy, flighty Internet. ‘I’m not thinking the way I used to think,’ he worried” (Thompson 354-355). Though Thompson agrees with neuroscientists that we don’t even know how our brains our wired, so how can we think that our brains are being effected by such things like technology and the
Carr writes “Your new phone, like your old one will become your constant companion and trusty factorum- your teacher, secretary, confessor, guru.” This example says that smartphone have become a persons best friend, and they steer us away from interaction with actual people. Carr also writes “We need to give our minds more room to think.” This example is saying that we constantly rely on our smartphones and that we need to change that and allow our minds to do work on their own. Lastly Carr writes “We love our phones for good reasons.”
If we were to take a look around, there is not a doubt that we will at least see one person with a phone in his or her hand. Smart phones, tablets, computers and televisions are a staple in most common households today. As technology becomes smarter, it is noticeable that people are becoming increasingly lazier. According to a survey conducted by the Department of Labor in 2012, watching TV was the leisure activity that occupied the most time, about 2.8 hours a day (“American Time Use Survey Summary”). This means people are spending more time in front of their televisions than they are any other activities in their free time. Technology is the number one thing people turn to, whether it is for entertainment or for functional use. People are relying on technology devices more than they should be.
In The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, Carr argues that technology negatively effects the way humans think and function. He believes that technology can reprogram the memory, mind, and concentration due to his personal experiences, as well as supporting evidence from research studies. In addition, he discusses the “plasticity” of the human brain, reading hardcopy vs. online, writing, and the detrimental effects of the internet on the brain. In the book The Shallows, Nicholas Carr argues that technology promotes superficial reading, alters the way individuals think, and stimulates cursory learning.
In June of 2007, the first iPhone was released, revolutionizing our way of living. For the past seven years, it has been known worldwide as one of the top smartphones. Since then, we have become reliant on mobile devices and technology in general making them a necessity for everyday life. The iPhone has further influenced our lifestyle due to its advanced and convenient features. Using the iPhone’s capabilities as the basis, this paper will explore the impact on our society from the use of, and dependence on iPhones. It will further analyze if these outcomes are in fact positive. The iPhone has become substantial in how we function, creating a significant change in our culture. Since iPhones do influence our lives, it is important to interpret how it is accomplished.
What if someone told you the devices you were using everyday were rewiring your brain? Would you believe them? In the article Is Google Making Us Stupid? author Nicholas Carr brought up the topic of Google, and the internet, affecting the way we read and think. Carr opened up the article by relating his topic to a scene from the movie 2001:
Many people argue and try to defend the notion that smartphones are not addictive and are simply a small add-on to our life. One such man, author James Brown, wrote “Who says smartphone addiction is a bad thing", and he argues smartphones are devices that fulfill multiple roles that can make our lives easier and is not something we are addicted too but rather depend on. Brown begins building his credibility with personal facts and sensible arguments and successfully employing emotional appeals.
Knowing the dangers and consequences of too much time spent on cell phones can protect lots of people and keep them healthy and happy along the way. Therefore, before picking up a cell phone at 2:00 a.m. on a Monday night to go on a social media website or to text a friend, people should think more about the important events that they have in the upcoming hours. Before they know it, it’s already 6:00 a.m. and time to wake up for school or
... are virtually mini telephones, digital cameras, laptops, and ipods in one. That amount of technology in such a compact space is truly astounding. It’s unfortunate to think cell phones are just becoming, if they have not already, another “status symbol” indicating where you rank on the ladder of what our culture deems “in”.
Every day of our lives, we watch as technology advances in leaps and bounds, so it was only logical when the cell phone came into existence, it would also be necessary to develop ways for a phone to be more than just a phone. With the explosion of the internet age people needed a way to bring their computers on the go, one that could fit in the palm of their hand. Whether it be checking emails, updating social networks or even playing games, smartphones seem to do it all. There is, however, a dark side to every technological advance that is made, to everything that makes our lives more convenient. Smartphones are not only an enormous distraction in our lives but are also known to cause health problems in those