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Ngoc Ho Henna Ahmed ENGL 1301-81029 09/13/2017 Is Google Making Us Stupid? Humans are living in the digital decade, generating the variety of media technologies to provide human the convenient information access. Nicolas Carr, an author of many books concerning technology and culture, expressed his skepticism about how the Internet impacts to human beings in the article: “Is Google making us stupid?”. Carr claims that the Internet has been changing the way human beings process information lowering the capacity for concentration and contemplation (Carr). Contrary to Carr’s argument, I have the positive perspective that the internet helps us smarter and people should concern about how they use the Internet instead of blaming this versatile tool …show more content…
However, I disagree with Carr’s negative perspective that “Google is making us stupid”. To blame the Internet is like blaming the cake someone us when we are on the diet because we totally can make our own choice. I believe what the Internet or Google do is giving us a new, easier tool to learn by providing us rich amount of database to do research and study. Basically, the Internet makes us smarter and increases our processing speed for acquiring knowledge. Professor Gary Small from the University of California concludes in his latest study: “Internet searching engages complicated brain activity which may help exercise and improve brain function” …show more content…
From my point of view, Google makes things easier for the users but ultimately does not make them stupid. People should use the advantages of the Internet to improve learning activities, but do not depend on it. Furthermore, people should practice thinking critically, enhance self-control to concentrate more on deep, long reading. No one knows what will happen in the future of the technology innovation, the only thing we can do is to adjust ourselves and take an active role to control our
In my opinion, Google does not make us stupid like Carr suggests in his article. Google may make us seem lazy because we do less reading and physical activity. Information found on websites helps people become smarter and able to learn subjects easier in school. In the end, Carr never really provides scientific evidence that shows the brain’s circuitry having actually changed. I generally agree with Gladstone’s views and think the mirror metaphor is a useful way of talking about the media’s role in a free society. I also think that the computer and the Internet have enhanced our abilities and increased our processing speeds for acquiring knowledge: making the human brain more efficient in multitasking. The young people who are growing up with this new technology will expand it’s future. Gladstone makes the case that media distributors, even ones that seem indestructible, are ultimately subject to the preferences of their audience: us. Citizens should take up the responsibility of learning about and interacting with valuable media sources and reject those that pander to the lowest common
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.
“ Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated” (Aristotle). In the essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid” Nicholas Carr presents a compelling argument in which he supports with Aristotle’s three styles for effective argumentation (logos, pathos, and ethos). Nicholas Carr appeals to the reader’s logic and reasoning, the reader’s emotion, and builds credibility within his essay. He exercises several effective writing strategies to strengthen his argument in the essay.
Finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, Nicholas Carr in his article, Is Google is making us stupid?, addresses his beliefs that the internet is creating artificial intelligence as it effects our mind and the way we think. Throughout the article Carr supports this claim with rhetorical devices as well as Aristotelian appeals. Carr begins by using pathos by stating an anecdote from a scene in the movie A Space Odyssey, then uses logos by stating factual evidence and statistics, lastly Carr uses ethos by conceding to opposition and stating appropriate vocabulary. In the article he compares the past and present and how the Internet has changed not only himself, but also people as a whole. In order to show his credibility, Carr uses research and
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
“Small Change” by Malcolm Gladwell is an essay that describes how technology has changed social movements. “Is Google Making us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr is an essay that describes how technology has made people have declining cognitive abilities. Both of these articles are about how people are using technology to accomplish tasks and goals they set to achieve. In my essay I’m going to compare the two essays and see where they excel and where they fail to expand their essay.
Nicolas Carr believes that the internet effects cognition. He assumes that it shapes the way we think. In Nicolas Carr’s, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” there is a direct correlation between Taylorism and google’s mission of creating “a utopia of perfect efficiency,” robbing humans of deep thinking, resulting in the depletion of learning to articulate the minds erratic consciousness, and of its attention span.
The internet is our conduit for accessing a wide variety of information. In his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Nicholas Carr discusses how the use of the internet affects our thought process in being unable to focus on books or longer pieces of writing. The author feels that “someone, or something, has been tinkering with [his] brain” over the past few years (Carr 731). While he was easily able to delve into books and longer articles, Carr noticed a change in his research techniques after starting to use the internet. He found that his “concentration often [started] to drift after two or three pages” and it was a struggle to go back to the text (Carr 732). His assertion is that the neural circuits in his brain have changed as a result of surfing endlessly on the internet doing research. He supports this statement by explaining how his fellow writers have had similar experiences in being unable to maintain their concentrations. In analyzing Carr’s argument, I disagree that the internet is slowly degrading our capacity for deep reading and thinking, thereby making us dumber. The Web and Google, indeed, are making us smarter by allowing us access to information through a rapid exchange of ideas and promoting the creativity and individualization of learning.
According to www.telegraph.co.uk, “[y]oung people aged between 16 and 24 spend more than 27 hours a week on the internet.” Certainly this much internet usage would have an effect on someone. What exactly is the effect of using the internet too much? Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” argues that we are too reliant on the internet and it is making the us dim-witted and shortens our attention span. While Clive Thompson’s article “Smarter than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better” states that technology is not only a collection of knowledge, it also a method of sharing and recording our own knowledge. I fall between both Carr and Thompson. I agree with car on his points of us being too reliant on the internet but disagree when he states that it is making us less intelligent. Meanwhile, I also support Thompson’s statement that the internet allows us to assimilate vast amounts of knowledge but disagree with his opinion on how we should be reliant on
Humans have been creating tools that allow us to be do things that would be otherwise impossible since the beginning of our existence. The ability to use and develop new tools is what sets us apart from all other animals. Yet it seems that ever since these tools started being created there were also people that feared these new tools and claimed that they are bad for the human race. The present fear of new technology is illustrated in the essay “Is Google Making us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr. In this essay Carr argues that the internet and other new technologies are changing the way we think in a negative way. Carr claims that new technology is making our generation stupid. In opposition the article “Smarter Than You Think” by Clive Thompson
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.
In the articles, “How Facts Backfire” and “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Keohane and Carr explain the cognitive blocks we are faced with in society. Keohane explains how we can be misinformed because of our beliefs. These beliefs can cloud our judgement of what is true and what isn’t true. Carr focuses on how the internet has changed the way we think. Carr includes how the internet can distract us, making tasks harder to complete. Both Keohane and Carr show us the negatives side effects of cognition.
Humans are becoming more technologically-efficient every day. New inventions and innovations are constantly being made. The Internet is becoming more “reliable” every day. However, how much do we really get from the constant advancement of Internet use and smarter technology? Should we look at their contributions to the world as a benefactor or a curse? The common effect of “artificial intelligence” in the technology we use every day is examined by two brilliant authors, Nicholas Carr and Jamias Cascio. In Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, he explains the effects of the Internet and technology in our society and claims that the overuse of technology is dangerous and can affect how our mind operates. Jamias Cascio, on the other hand, uses his article “Get Smarter” to show the positive effects of technology in our constantly adaptive society claims that technology may just be making our society smarter and more efficient. While Carr and Cascio both use the claim of cause in their articles to provide valid points on how technology affects our society, Carr’s article proves to be more effective because it focuses on skeptical-based evidence and uses a variety of appeals and proofs.
“Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr and “How Computers Change the Way We Think” by Sherry Turkle are two articles that explore how technology influences our daily lives. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” discusses the effects of the internet in our society, how it is robbing us of our deep thoughts, memories and our ability to read books. Carr also talks about how the internet has become our primary source of getting information. The writer also discusses about how he’s having difficulty focusing on reading. “How Computers Change the Way We Think” is talking about how people don’t use their brains full potential capacity to solve problems. Instead, we depend on technology to do that for us.
Steven Pinker and Nicholas Carr share their opposing views on the effects that mass media can have on the brain. In Carr’s Atlantic Monthly article “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” it explores his viewpoints on how increased computer use affects our thought process in a negative manner. Carr critically analyzes that having widespread access to the internet via the internet has done more harm by disabling our ability to think complexly like it is the researching in a library. On the other hand, Pinker expresses how the media improves our brain’s cognitive functions. Pinker expresses that we should embrace the new technological advances and all we need is willpower to not get carried away in the media. Although both authors bring very valid arguments