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.
The article begins with the depiction of a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey in which the astronaut Dave Bowman unplugs the supercomputer HAL. Carr uses this to tie in his feelings that, like HAL, someone or something is toying with the wiring of his brain. This is a strong emotional appeal. Carr intends to quickly gain his audience’s attention with the feeling of being “unplugged”, and possibly to gain the sympathies of readers who have felt a similar feeling. Carr proceeds to talk about how he can no longer become absorbed in an article or book, saying “my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages.” Again, this works as a strong emotional appeal. English buffs - Carr’s likely primary audience - who read this article may agree...
... middle of paper ...
...echniques employed are persuasive and subtle, and this allows Carr to take advantage of all emotional arguments at his disposal. In conjunction with sources pertinent to the topic, Carr’s emotional appeals seem to get his audience thinking, and from the article it is easy to agree with the points he has made. Carr’s use of logos and pathos does bring into question his ethos, however. Fortunately, Carr’s ethos should not be questioned, as he has written several books and articles on the topic. This does not excuse his bias, but it does permit him to speak on the topic at hand. Carr definitely presents himself as a strong literary figure, and his views on the internet are reasonable as well as relatable. This combination of ethos, pathos, and logos successfully allows Carr to write as an expert in this field, and his article and thoughts are not to be taken lightly.
In Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” the reader finds all three methods of persuasion, ethos, pathos, and logos in emphasizing his point that Google is possibly making people stupid; but it is ultimately the people who cause their own mental deterioration. His persuasion is a reminder to people of the importance of falling back on the “traditional” ways of reading. He also understands that in skimming an article one has the ability to retain what is necessary. Carr himself points out that in the past he was better able to focus on what he read and retain the information. However, now he exercises the process of browsing and skimming over information, just as many individuals have come to do in this day and age.
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
By appealing so much to pathos, his letter focuses more on emotionally convincing and persuading the reader to accept his claim, rather than providing facts and logic to his argument. His combined use of logos and ethos also adds an aspect of logic and reason to his argument, as well as further showing his credibility and connection to the subject as the author. His use of the three rhetorical devices helps to bolster and support his claim, while also personalizing and connecting with the
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.
In Is Google Making Us Stupid, Carr concerns about spending too much time on web, making people lose the patient and ability to read and think and changing people’s thinking behaviors. He gives so many points: he can not read lengthy article used to be easy; many author begin to feel that too much reading online let them hard to read and absorb a longish article; we put efficiency and immediacy above understanding when we read; The circuits in brain has been altered by reading habit.
The first of the many ideas conveyed in Carr’s article is that the brain is malleable like plastic. To explain, the professor of Neuroscience, James Olds, says that “nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones” (Carr 4). This means that the human brain changes the way it functions according to the information manipulated by neurons. In the novel Feed, brain malleability is involved in the climax of the story. The feed works as a computer chip being directly inserted into a person’s brain. The climax of the story occurs when Titus and his group of friends get their brain chips hack. Before the attack, Violet, one of the main characters, never questions the society she lives in. However, after her brain chip is affected, her thoughts and brain functions rewired and from then, she starts to reflect on society. Given the climax of the story, the novel illustrates how even a brain chip cannot stop the natural malleability property of the human brain.
In Is Google Making Us Stupid, Nicholas Carr disputes that due to new digital tools, peoples’ ability to retain and acquire information has been negatively altered. Even though, we have information at our fingertips, we often don’t take the time to soak in all the information. Carr mentions Bruce Friedman, a blogger, who finds it extremely difficult to read a “longish article on the web” and to try to focus on the importance of the text holistically (Carr 316). This is an issue that many can relate even Carr knows that, “ the deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle (Carr 314). Additionally, media theorist Mcluhan describes the net as “chipping away [mental] capacity for concentration and contemplation” (Carr 315). In essences, Carr states that we are having less of an attention span and consequently, less patience for longer articles (Carr 314). Therefore, this affects media outlets such as magazines, newspapers, and other articles, because they must conform and shorten their texts to fit the status quo that people safely enjoy (Carr 321). In addition, the net forces people to be efficient, and so, causes people to “weaken [their] capacity for deep reading” (Carr 317). People are becoming more driven on how quick he or she has to do something rather than think why this text is important. As a consequence, Carr believes that we are starting to lose our ability to be critical readers and
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.
He claimed that before internet journals were so widespread that he immerse himself lengthy articles and book with no issues of his attention span shortening and drifting away. “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.” It is a little daring to say that the internet is essentially rewiring the human brain cognitive function. It’s fair to say that it is prohibiting the mind to think as complexly as it needs to because the information is so readily available now, but attaining information is not as lengthy as it used to be like having to go to the library for
First, he provides an overview of the history and development of the book as well as the development of reading. Carr analyzes and explains the effects of these developments on the individuals. Furthermore, he notes that the Internet recreates and alters a medium’s content by the use of hyperlinks, which ultimately distracts readers, and by separating the content into organized chunks. These characteristics make the content “searchable” which stimulates skimming behavior or superficial reading. As a result, readers retain less information due to the lack of deep, analytical reading. In addition, online texts often incorporate opinions, beliefs, or skewed viewpoints of certain topics, which can have negative effects on readers. Carr also addresses that some opponents believe that hardcopy reading was a result of “impoverished access” (111) and that the desire to use the fast paced web is a result of a quickening pace of life and work over the past few
In the passage “ Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, Nicholas emulates the thesis stating that we as race are not capable of doing certain tasks from the past. Because of
Is Google making us stupid? Carr’s conclusion to his article, gives us the an obviously answer. Google gives us a large amount of access to many types of information and that that access thus making us smarter. Carrs main issues was not being able to focus on reading. His first few paragraphs examine the causes behind it and how he’s not the only one with this problem. His friends and colleagues also struggle with this and so do some impressively credentialed bloggers. Carr realizes that that’s not enough to really prove anything. He begins to cite a few studies of internet behavior, giving them as evidence that there is something to the idea that internet use might be changing the way we think and leaving the audience to come to the logical conclusion that he may have a
In his article, “Is google making us Stoopid?: What the internet is doing to our brains,” Nicholas Carr describes the effects of the internet upon a person’s brain and the impact the web has on deeper level thinking and comprehension of reading. As the advancements of technology continue to transform, the way in which people look at the internet is that of a “passive way of information”. Carr, for instance, emphasizes reading to be the key to everything we do these days. Unfortunately, thanks to the use of the Internet, Carr elaborates upon the information that reading the material found upon the web is changing the way we read, and has tremendous affects to the manner in which we develop higher level thoughts.
Nicholas Carrs article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” makes points that I agree with, although I find his sources to be questionable. The article discusses the effects that the Internet may be having on our ability to focus, the difference in knowledge that we now have, and our reliance on the Internet. The points that are made throughout Carrs article are very thought provoking but his sources make them seem invaluable.