Nicholas Carr's 'Is Google Making USupid?'

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.

The figurative language used by Nicholas Carr is overall covering a broad spectrum of things. He states, “My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski” (745). By Carr saying this, he is giving an example of personification describing the way the words once use to be and the way they are now as being so unclear, because he goes over them like a guy on a jet ski. This obviously is not

actually possible, but it is the way the writer feels about taking in information from the Internet. He does not think that the ability to focus for a certain period of time is as long but rather like skimming over everything like the jet ski goes over a sea of water. It is simply impossible to be thorough for anything having this method. By using this type of figurative language, he makes his point more effective because it strengthens his original point.
Carr continues his use of different types of figurative language with the use of a simile. “Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the gifted young men who founded Google while pursuing doctoral degrees in computer science at Stanford, speak frequently of their desire to turn their search engine into an artificial intelligence, a HAL-like machine that might be connected directly to our brains. “The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people-or smarter,” Page said in a speech a few years back. “For us, working on search is a way to work on artificial intelligence” (754-755). He shows here that these men who created this search engine had a particular goal and they achieved it knowing this. Knowing that the ultimate search engine was as smart as a human brain and sometimes even smarter. Our human brains are compared to a computer and the computers live up to this comparison. This simile strengthens the argument of the essay furthermore, because this is what Carr has said that he is afraid of. This would do the exact thing he said it would but didn’t want it to, by taking a way we would use our brain to think and making it an easy way to receive information without trying.
Deductive reasoning is also seen throughout this essay.

Carr wants his readers to see his reason and he does. At the end of this he claims, “ In the world of 2001, people have become so machinelike that the most human character turns out to be a machine” (758). This is an example of deductive reasoning because it shows that because people are so machinelike that our most powerful search engine becomes like the human and we become like it. It is perplexing to think about, but it is true. All along this becomes an effective point for Carr. The transformation of the people in this day in time is so close to the way machines

are.
The logical fallacies brought about in this essay are all different. Carr says, “ As we are drained of our “inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance,” Foreman concluded, we risk turning into “ ‘pancake people’- spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button” (758). This part of the essay is an example of the logical fallacy called slippery slope. He is stating that if we go along with the technology and using the search engines available we will end up as a “pancake people” unable to do anything on our own. Carr does this to show the significance of the changes that are being made in our culture and the affects that it is having on the common person. Showing how the brain can be damage and the way most people are shown to turn out to be is a major way to continue to prove his point from the beginning.
The next example is Nicholas Carr using the begging the claim fallacy to again strengthen the writing of his work. He says, “Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link-the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction” (756). This shows that the writer was proving the point that what we are getting out of the Internet usage is exactly what the creators wanted. They want us to be distracted therefore they win. Carr again proves the point of how bad this is making us to be intellectually, especially in the long run.
Overall Nicholas Carr makes great points that make his essay stronger in so many ways. The use of all the different types of tools and techniques he uses in a positive way not negative resulting in it being powerfully used to influence the readers in the way he wishes to influence them. His use of different types of figurative language, deductive reasoning, and the use of logical fallacies ended up helping prove his point and made his argument stronger.