In Nicholas Carr's article "Is Google Making Us Stupid", he make an argument is that most people do not think about. He believes that the internet is affecting the human thought process and how we process information in our technological age. Carr heavily refers to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which he uses this story as a starting point to describe how the internet has affected him. Carr mainly focuses on the scene from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, where a supercomputer, HAL, is be taken apart by the very man it tried to kill. He uses this reference to enhance his assertion as he then begins to describe how technology has affected him in a negative way. Nicholas Carr starts to explain how scattered his mind has become since his use of the internet. He starts off by saying that "something has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory". (9). He then goes on to say how he can barely focus on a long article or story without his mind wandering off of the subject of whatever he is reading. After explaining what has happened to him, he refers to friends, family members, and even acquaintances, who claim that they are experiencing the same problem. One of the greatest examples he provides if from a fellow blogger who also happens to be a lit major. Scott Karp, the blogger Carr refers to says that he has stopped reading books all together. “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader,” he wrote. “What happened?” He speculates on the answer: “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?” (48)
After providing multipl...
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...ernet has affected him in a negative way, which I'm turn makes his argument much more believable and easier to defend. Carl Zimmer on the other hand presents minimal evidence, although he pull evidence from David Crystal's book: Texting: The Gr8 Db8 in which he points out that “texting actually improves your literacy, as it gives you more practice in reading and writing.”(25). Unfortunately his lack of personal references ultimately makes his argument inferior the Carr's argument
Works Cited
Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid." The Atlantic. N.p., 01 July 2008. Web. 30 Spetember 2013. .
Zimmer , Carl. "How Google is Making Us Smartee." Discover. N.p., 15 Jan 2009. Web. 12 Nov 2013. .
An individual’s first thought when needing information has turned to “Let’s Google that!” Carr’s utilization of Bruce Friedman’s article where he states, “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print”, adds credibility to Carr’s claims. Here, he once again, shows how he relates to his audience through his statement, “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”. He shows through his statement that he relates to Freidman, with similar values and traits, linking the two ideas
Author Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google making us Stupid,” discusses how the use of the computer affects our thought process. Carr starts out talking about his own experience as a writer and how he felt like “something had been tinkering with his brain, remapping his neural circuitry and reprogramming his memory”(313). Basically, he is acknowledging that since he started using the Internet his research techniques have changed. Carr believes that before he would immerse himself in books, lengthy articles and long stretches of prose allowing his mind to get caught up in the narrative or the
While his best arguments come from cultural criticism. Written text led to the decline of oral reading and television obliterated the radio. Every technology comes with it’s trade-offs, it just comes down to moderation. There is little doubt that the internet is changing our brain. What Carr neglects to mention, however, is how the internet can change our brain for the better. Computer games have the ability to improve cognitive tasks and increase visual attention. He doesn’t always address the good effects that the internet has had on the world. One of the better strategies Carr uses is switching his point of view from third to first person. He reflects on his personal life and how his life has changed in response to what he has learned. Carr shows how even he has his faults but, being aware of a problem is the first step to finding
His mind starts to drift away from the texts and he’s not really understanding the material that is right in front of him. He believes that if you don’t exercise your memory, then you can become more forgetful. Carr also believes this to be true because we are using the internet to look up answers for ourselves and not doing the research to find it ourselves. We’re not relying on our memory to remember what we read, we’re just looking for the answers.
Relating back to my thesis, it seems like the use of electronic devices is something that is a definitely a growing issue. And while Carr does not have all the evidence in the world to prove his point, he does have enough to back up what he is saying. Carr is able to use a relatable topic to help draw discussion on something that may be an issue in the future. Also, another strong point in this article, is the fact that almost everyone can relate to having a shortened attention span when reading for long periods of time. It is also evident that the strong points outweigh the weak in this article. Nicholas Carr has many strong points in his article. He successfully proves that what he has to say is worthy of his readers time, and that maybe we should all take caution to how much time we spend on the
Nicholas Carr gives a sense of unbiased in his work when he writes, “I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the database of the internet. The web has been a godsend to me as a writer” (394). Though this statement it is clear that he sees both sides of the argument and by demonstrating this to the author he strategically is appealing to ethos and supporting his own argument. In hopes of building credibility, he begins to write, “Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going ─ so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think” (394). Granted that he writes this in the beginning of his essay he is trying to credit himself as a victim which helps him support his argument against the constant usage of the internet. Nicholas Carr is aware that without building credibility within his essay the audience will dismiss his points as uneducated and meaningless.
Together they work together as a whole in order to persuade his audience of those involved in technology. Carr uses these strategies in order to back up his information and validate his point. Carr begins by using pathos by stating an anecdote from the movie A Space Odyssey, then he uses logos by stating factual evidence and statistics, lastly Carr uses ethos by stating appropriate vocabulary and conceding to opposition. Throughout the article Carr compares the past and present and how the Internet has changed not only himself, but also people. In order to show his credibility, Carr uses research and examples of other credible writers who have the same beliefs as he does on the Internet. Due to the article being lengthy in text we are able to assume that Carr does that on purpose in order to validate his point that the Internet is affecting our mind as it shortens our attention span and ability to think creatively. The purpose of the excerpt is to persuade his audience of those involved in technology that people in the society today are unable to have complete focus on a longer text due to the Internet causing us to artificial intelligence. For this purpose, Carr develops an influential tone for his audience
Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid” and Sherry Turkle’s “How Computers Change the Way We Think” both discuss the influence of technology to their own understanding and perspective. The first work by Nicholas Carr is about the impact technology has on his mind. He is skeptical about the effect it could cause in the long term of it. He gives credible facts and studies done to prove his point. While Sherry Turkle’s work gives a broad idea of the impact of technology has caused through the years. She talks about the advances in technology and how it is changing how people communicate, learn and think. In both works “Is Google Making Us Stupid” and “How Computers Change the Way We Think” the authors present
The following essay will discuss how the ideas in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, is expressed in the futuristic novel Feed, by M.T Anderson.
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.
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 .
These two articles are similar in the sense that they agree that the internet and computational objects are reshaping our brain’s structure by changing our neural circuit. By using examples from their personal experiences to identify a trend in technology use, the authors illustrate that the more we bury ourselves in technology the more we are unable to understand material which leads to loss of concentration and the ability to think for ourselves. As an author, Carr finds the internet a beneficial tool, but it’s having a bad effect on his concentration span. Carr points this out by stating “Immersing myself in a book or lengthy article used to be easy, now I get fidgety, lose the thread and begin looking for something else to do” (39). He is no
Andrea Schlesinger’s, “In Google We Trust” a chapter in her book The Death of Why? The issue is that the internet has changed people and that it may not be a good thing. Google has changed the way that people think greatly, especially in our ability to analyze, understand and know the source of the information we receive from 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/