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The Internet has created a generation of the most efficient multi-taskers ever born. Many people will have at least four tabs open as a time (Google, Facebook, Youtube, Pandora, Wikipedia, Gmail, etc.). People are constantly jumping from one web page to the next, clicking on links and opening new tabs and browsers. The method through which knowledge is gained has transitioned from deep reading to fast skimming. Every time a web page is opened the viewer is bombarded with information, almost every page has advertisements or links to additional information lining its sides. The Internet has made mountains of information available to almost anyone. It is fast and easy to find information and facts. Essentially the Internet has become the fast food of knowledge. It is convenient but it skips the element of effort.
Nicholas Carr (a renowned author who has written extensively on this subject), reported in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” cases of very intelligent, well educated people who have begun to notice a change in the way they think and study. These people are experiencing an increasing difficulty in remaining focused for long periods of time or while reading a work longer than a few pages. It’s as if mankind is being programmed to click on any link of button it is presented with and, more importantly, to look for them, even when they aren’t there. Human brains seem to be transitioning away from the careful, deeply focused mentality of an archer’s brain to the lively, constantly moving focus of a juggler’s brain.
Search engines, specifically Google, have probably contributed more to the distribution of knowledge than any other invention since the creation of the printing press. Google was created by Larry Page and Serge...
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...people to be careful with how much time they spend on the Web.
Works Cited
Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Norton Field Guide to Writing. 3rd ed. Eds. Richard Bullock, Maureen Daly Goggin and Francine Weinberg. New York: Norton, 2013. 731-745. PDF.
Christakis, Dimitri A. "Internet Addiction: A 21St Century Epidemic?." BMC Medicine 8.(2010): 61-63.Academic
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In my opinion, Google does not make us stupid like Carr suggests in his article. Google may make us seem lazy because we do less reading and physical activity. Information found on websites helps people become smarter and able to learn subjects easier in school. In the end, Carr never really provides scientific evidence that shows the brain’s circuitry having actually changed. I generally agree with Gladstone’s views and think the mirror metaphor is a useful way of talking about the media’s role in a free society. I also think that the computer and the Internet have enhanced our abilities and increased our processing speeds for acquiring knowledge: making the human brain more efficient in multitasking. The young people who are growing up with this new technology will expand it’s future. Gladstone makes the case that media distributors, even ones that seem indestructible, are ultimately subject to the preferences of their audience: us. Citizens should take up the responsibility of learning about and interacting with valuable media sources and reject those that pander to the lowest common
In composing “Is Google Making Us More Stupid” Nicholas Carr wants his audience to be feared by the internet while at the same time he wants his work to seem more creditable. Nicholas Carr uses many different types of evidence to show us that we should be scared and feared as well as his credibility. Carr’s audience is people who think like him, who find themselves getting lost on the internet while reading something, someone who is educated and uses the internet to look up the answers to questions or to read an article or book.
He states how he used to spend hours reading, but his concentration started to drift after two or three pages. He backed up his theory with stories from others who say they’re experiencing the same thing. But they still await the long-term neurological and psychological experiments that will provide a definitive picture of how the internet affects cognition. After a brief history lesson, Carr starts to incorporate Google into the article. He tells us about Google’s history and their mission.
First is Nicolas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” In the article Carr discussed the damage we are doing to our brains
If you find yourself skimming through pages, looking for bullet points and your mind wandering off, you might be suffering the effects of Google making you stupid. These are the things that Nicholas Carr talks about in his essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” was originally published in July 2008 in Atlantic magazine. Carr argues that the use of technology on the daily basis has made us unable to go into deeper thought about things. Along with the opinion of Scientists and other “literary types” he asserts that the web has indeed made us change the way we think. Power Browsing is the new way people are reading, this is where you look from title to title, surfing the web from link to link. Overall, he advocates that eventually our brains will
With the rise of technology and the staggering availability of information, the digital age has come about in full force, and will only grow from here. Any individual with an internet connection has a vast amount of knowledge at his fingertips. As long as one is online, he is mere clicks away from Wikipedia or Google, which allows him to find what he needs to know. Despite this, Nicholas Carr questions whether Google has a positive impact on the way people take in information. In his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr explores the internet’s impact on the way people read. He argues that the availability of so much information has diminished the ability to concentrate on reading, referencing stories of literary types who no longer have the capacity to sit down and read a book, as well as his own personal experiences with this issue. The internet presents tons of data at once, and it is Carr’s assumption that our brains will slowly become wired to better receive this information.
Every day there is some new technological advancement making its way into the world in an attempt to make life easier for people. In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, author Nicholas Carr explains his thoughts on how he believes the internet is running the risk of making people full of artificial knowledge. Carr begins by explaining how he feels that the web is causing his focus issues, how he can no longer be completely immersed in a book, and the reason why he gets fidgety while reading. He then goes on to talk about how his life is surrounded by the internet and how that is the blame for the issues he has towards not being able to stay connected to a text; but at the same time says how and why the web has been a ‘godsend’ because he is a writer. In an attempt to draw the reader in, Carr uses a great deal of rhetorical appeals. He compares the differences of the past and the present and how he feels how it has changed not only himself, but others as well and how they are able to comprehend and focus due to the growing nature of the web. While comparing this, he accumulated research from several credited writers who feel the same way he does about the effects of the web.
Carr explains how the internet can distract us making it harder to focus on tasks. He explains how processing information has become harder. Notifications, ads, popups can make it difficult if you are trying to read an article or book (Carr 57). The internet has become the center of our attention (Carr 57). Carr is explaining how this is the reason why we are struggling to comprehend a certain piece of information. He adds in his article that scientists, researchers and educators have also noticed the difference in concentration. And in further detail, he explains that we fail to see the important information, thus affecting cognition. He says that the information we gather is not valuable unless we know the meaning behind it. Carr concludes with explaining that the more the internet evolves the less valuable information is to
Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid." July/August 2008. The Alantic Magazine. 20 February 2012 .
Certain effects of your brain can be in jeopardy by using too much technology. Articles below by Nicholas Carr, an American writer who writes about technology and culture, and Matt Ritchel, an American writer and journalist, will inform you on how. Using technology can have certain effects on the brain. Nicholas Carr’s magazine blog, “The Web Shatters Focus, Rewrites Brains,” tells us about an experiment from ULCA professor, Gary Small. Gary Small performed his experiment on the study of brain activity.
Noble writes about the dependence that the world has on search engines, citing the “near ubiquitous use of search engines” (Noble, “Google Search”). She elaborates on this idea of Google’s monopolistic stronghold over Internet searching in a video lecture, “Challenging the Algorithms of Oppression”. She states that societies shift in how the word “Google” is used from a noun to a verb shows our
In today’s fast paced technology, search engines have become vastly popular use for people’s daily routines. A search engine is an information retrieval system that allows someone to search the...
Does a world-class search engine like google dumb us down? As argued by Nicholas Carr in his essay, Google
Is Google Making Us Stupid? - Magazine - The Atlantic. (n.d.). The Atlantic — News and analysis on politics, business, culture, technology, national, international, and life – TheAtlantic.com. Retrieved April 21, 2012, from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/
"Expert Warns Against Internet Overuse; Says Google Generation Susceptible to Brain Death." International Business Times - US ed. 26 Dec. 2012. Academic OneFile. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.