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…
The fact that most of us now habitually kee our phones “nearby and in sight,” the researchers noted, only magnifies the mental toll.” This has a strong effect on the reader due to the word choice used, such as the word ‘debilitate’ and ‘magnifies’ instead of words like ‘weaken’ or ‘increase’.
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…
choice it impacts the reader by expressing how unsettling the information really is. Finally, he says “More information would breed sharper thinking. We now know it’s not that simple. The way a media device is designed and used exerts at least as much influence over our minds as does the information that the device disgorges.” By using inclusive language, Carr expresses that phones has an effect on everyone who uses them and that he too is under the effects of the phone. Carr also uses many comparisons and even at times personifies the phones to express how much leverage they have over our lives.
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
better. Finally, by providing statistics, Carr can strengthen and solidify his points how phones affect our cognitive abilities by giving proven evidence that backs them up. Carr notes that a 2015 study found that when people are able to hear their phones ringing but can’t answer them have their blood pressure and heart rate rise and their cognitive skills decline. By giving this information it shows that there are not only physical effects that can be observed, it also shows that phones have a negative effect on our cognitive ability. Carr also provides data that students who had their phones with them, whether they used them or not, “all scored equally poorly” which expresses that despite even when not in use that phones limit our testing ability and prompts lower level thinking. Finally, by providing data such as how mobile phones bound development of closeness and trust, it reveals that phones can prevent us from focusing on the real world around us and focusing on creating new friendships. Overall, Carr’s use of diction, comparisons and statistics expresses in a cohesive way that phones are affecting us more than we realize and that we should look to reduce the amount of time we are on them and form better and longer lasting relationships with other people.
Although Twenge conveyed her purpose, the wording of the title may cause offense to readers who are members of iGen. Smartphones did not destroy a generation, it only weakened some of the generations mental health. Twenge’s article could possibly persuade readers to start using their phones less.
Thesis: Twenge affectively uses emotional appeals to persuade her readers into believing that the excessive use of smartphone has ruined a generation.
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:
...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.
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
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.
In “ How Smartphones Hijack Our Minds,” Nicholas Carr is persuading his audience to refrain from and shorten their amount of smartphone usage, and he reveals his perspective on how he believes that smartphones are hijacking our minds, and causing issues in our society. Carr cleverly uses several devices to persuade his audience and to drive his point home. Among these devices are statistics, comprehensive language, and reasoning. Nicholas Carr uses statistics to involve the data he has found to support his claim that numbers don’t lie. “In both tests, the students whose phones were in view posted the worst scores.
Cell phones in hand, and laptops so small they fit in purses. Computers at our homes insure we can get on the internet and surf the web for answers for anything that may need to know. As the growth of technology has evolved the past twenty years we have become more dependent upon it for everyday things. From alarms, calendars, ‘googling’, counting our steps to make sure we stay healthy, connecting us to our friends and family; simple things that we often take for granted. Though our lives are often ruled by the various technology pieces out there to keep us ‘grounded during the day, some pieces of technology are not healthy for our bodies and minds.
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.
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.
Technology has always been at the forefront of the world’s mind, for as long as anyone can remember. The idea of “advancing” has been a consistent goal among developers. However, recently the invention of smartphones broke out into the world of technology, causing millions of people to become encapsulated in a world of knowledge at their fingertips. Jean Twenge elaborates on the impacts of the smartphone on the younger generation in her article “Has the Smartphone Destroyed a Generation?” Twenge’s article is just a sliver of the analysis that she presents in her book “IGen.” Twenge, a professor of psychology at San
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.
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”.