Technology has enhanced communication, broadened information gathering, and supplied convenience to everyday life. However, it can decrease concentration, make alterations to reading abilities, and encourage dependency on online resources. In "Hal and Me", Nicholas Carr, who examines technology urges society to become self-sufficient of the web. Without uncovering his personal opinion, making it uncertain where his stance lies. Proposing the internet has the capability to administer control over thought process and mind sets. Carr grabs readers' attention by including a scene from the movie: A Space Odyssey, as an introduction (p.347). His motive is to persuade them the reader to continue reading further and anticipate what his argument will …show more content…
Carr explains it has become a part of the daily process of life. He elaborates three categories: employment, education, and leisure intertwined with the audience's lifestyle. Carr emphasizes some may use all three. This illustrates that constantly being in contact with computerized machinery, therefore, handing personal independence over to online software. Carr states that regardless of devices' form or edition, the internet is still of the essence to a majority of the public. Dubbing the web as civilizations' civilization’s "medium of choice" (p.351). Carr justifies this remark, suggesting the amount of time consumed on the net , despite providing high-speed data. Thus allowing readers to reflect on their own individual …show more content…
Carr notes information from the research in his argument. nGenera came to the conclusion the section were vulnerable to "Digital immersion", this gave rise to the developed habit of glossing over information (p.351). Therefore, Carr uses this data to backups his previously stated assertion of the web altering the mind. Supply evidence he cites college student Joe O'Shea, who believes books are inefficient to provide information (p.350). Instead relies solely on the web to gather online documents in order to learn. Carr's intention is to advance his message that students such as O'Shea with an "old-fashioned" mentality has lead many to believe that the internet is the best option
Nicholas Carr, a periodic writer on issues such as technology and culture, wrote the article called “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (743) In this, he discusses the way that not only Google, but also the advancement in technology, especially computers and computer engines is slowly altering our brain, along with the way we take in information. The process started back in the 1970’s and 1980’s when technology got a jump in society. For example “television was our medium of choice” says Carr (747). From then on it has been a slow decline for the way we process information. Throughout this essay Carr backs up the reasons why he feels the way by using different types of figurative language, deductive reasoning, plus the use of logical fallacies that can strengthen or may even weaken his argument.
One for example is when he talks about how he used to be deeply immersed in readings and now after two or three pages he says “I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” (Carr, 1). Most people would look at the statement and agree. With social media prevalent in society today and with the length of articles getting shorter and advertisements constantly popping up it’s hard to stay focus on just one story. People only scratch the surface when they read now instead of diving deeper into the story. Carr argues that people’s attention spans have gotten shorter over time. But, it’s not only reading stories on the internet, it’s how we’re connected to our electronic devices. A perfect example is we’re always within arm’s reach our phones, ipads, laptops, etc. which can make people lose focus. When’s the last time you looked at your phone to look at a text or check Facebook? Was it 5 minutes ago or even 2 minutes ago? The things we can do with our phones is so technically advanced and Carr believes it’s taking over our minds in a negative way. This generation of children and young adults today are connected to the web constantly. An answer for something is always a click away, which can be a good thing and a bad
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
Like Gladwell, Nicholas Carr believes the internet has negative effects. In his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Carr attempts to show as the internet becomes our primary source of information, it diminishes the ability to read books and extensive research. Carr goes on to give a very well researched account of how text on the internet is designed make browsing fast and profitable. He describes how the design for skimming affects our thinking skills and attention spans. He wraps up his argument by describing what we are losing in the shift toward using the internet as our main information source. Carr suggests the learning process that occurs in extensive research and through reading is lost. While the learning process can be beneficial to scholars and intellectuals, not everyone has the capability to follow through with it. The internet offers an education that anyone can have access to and understand. Also if Carr believes the learning process is better, this option is always available for people who want to learn according to this scholarly principal. However, for the rest of the population the quick and easy access has allowed the average population to become more educated, and to expose themselves to aspects of academia that previously is reserved for
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.
From communicating with one another to researching for an essay, these high-tech gadgets are constantly being used. Unfortunately this is slowly becoming a danger to the human mind and an individual's ability to carry out simple tasks. This can be shown through the examples in Carr’s novel. He states multiple times that technology is damaging the brain and is struggling to do the simple tasks it should be able to do. Through his multiple examples, it is clear that technology is hurting us because we can no longer contemplate, concentrate, remember certain details, and more. Although, we cannot avoid using technology, we should be mindful of how often we use
Carr concedes, saying that his internet theory cannot be based on anecdotes alone, but he is convinced Karp is on to something. According to the study done by College London, people spend most of their time skimming internet articles. Participants hopped from one site to anoth...
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
Trying to reflect the fears instilled in himself through comparison to an unrealistic movie. I believe that the internet hasn’t changed everyone’s the way the he says its changed his. I think that people who were born into the world of technology have the ability to analyze into a deeper thought what is needed and skim for instant answer when it’s not needed. On the other side those whom have been forced to adapt to it, such as Carr, find themselves losing abilities they once relied on because they were taught growing up to do both things. Now that the internet has forced them to adapt to it, they can’t focus of doing both types of thinking. The complexity of our minds is deep and that can’t be made shallow by the ability to get instant gratification of information. We simply begin to rule out unimportant things, once the important thing is found then it can be analyzed. Although Carr says his mind isn’t going as far as it used to, clearly that’s exactly what he did in this essay. He used the older “traditional way” of over-analyzing unnecessary things to reach a point that ends up being moot. Clearly, his use of logos, ethos and pathos, although present were not enough to prove his opinion to be
In this article, Carr uses a lot of Ethos to help prove his point. “For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet” (Carr 2). Carr experiences what we feel as well, he states that he uses the internet just as much as we do. He includes this quote or Etho so we don’t feel like he doesn't know how much we depend on the internet. “The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer” (Carr 2). By this, he would mean they he uses the web a
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
He knows that people use the internet as a fast way of gathering, instead of reading the information. Carr speak through his experience, as he is one of those people. He wrote the article as is first hand knowledge on the issues. Additional “The net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind (is google making us stupid? by Carr page 2)”. Carr shows the reader he use to be them, who rely on the internet before he became a writer for The Atlantic. He made the reader to trust his opinion in the matter and making him a credible source to
Nick Carraway is the only character worth knowing in The Great Gatsby. He is living in East Egg with the rich and powerful people. He is on the guest lists to all of their parties and yet he is the person most worthy of attending such parties because he is well bread and his family is certainly not poor. “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” (Ch1, P1). These words were taught to Nick by his father showing the qualities that a man with goals and values would have in a place where goals and values was no existent. His Judgmental eye for character and guts of using them when desired makes him more interesting. He has a greatest fear that he will be all alone by himself.
Moreover, Carr’s article mentions that by using technology of any kind, users tend to embody the characteristics stimulated by that technology. He says that given that the Internet processes information almost immediately, users will tend to value immediacy. To explain, Carr gives the example of a friend of his named Scott Karp who was a literary major on college and who used to be an avid book reader. However, since the arrival of the Internet, Karp skim articles online because he could no longer read as much as he used too. He cannot pay attention and absorb long texts ever since he read online articles. Internet...
He observes that his mind has been changing with the use of the internet and that computers are diminishing his capacity for concentration and contemplation (Carr 315). He effectively expresses his feelings that longer attention spans are being replaced by more instant-gratification demanding mindsets. It’s with these newfound mindsets that Carr expresses concern that the human psyche is becoming little more than robotic algorithms incapable of reflection, deep critical thinking, problem solving, or imagination (Carr 327). Furthermore, Carr’s concern with how technology affects our ability to think has been echoed in research specific to