In this era dominated by technology, where information is readily available at a click, Nicholas Carr’s article attempts to discuss the effect of humanity’s reliance on the internet. While “is Google making us stupid?” initially disguises itself as an article on the effects of internet usage on the mind, Carr’s lack of statistical data severely undermines his claims. His reliance on personal experiences and usage of quotations from other authors without very much analysis renders the article inadequate. Initially, Carr begins his article by quoting lines from the movie “A Space Odyssey”: “‘Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. You are the best. Will you stop, Dave?’ So [,] the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bowman in a famous and weirdly poignant scene.” Although I have not seen this movie myself, this quote and a quick watch on YouTube shows me what he is referencing, using these quotes Carr tries …show more content…
From these first few sentences it should have been clear that the rest of the article was going to be an opinion piece, yet I read on, hoping, and perhaps praying that these sentences were just a hook and a fluke. Unfortunately, as I read more and more of the article, I seemed to catch myself becoming more and more irritated at how an article with the title, “is Google making us stupid?” contained nothing more than the thoughts of a man who had grown up at a time when technology was still very new and it seemed to me that he was trying his very best to keep his world from changing by any means necessary, very repeatedly Carr uses personal experiences to justify how he believes technology is “making us stupid”. One instance of this can be found within the article when he explains, “My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three
Have you ever been reading online, and just cannot concentrate? If you have, you're not alone. American Author, Nicholas Carr was a Harvard graduate, who wrote "Is Google making us Stupid." This non-fiction news article informed us about how modern day technology affects our learning or reading. With all this information Carr, explains how google is making us stupid. Nicholas Carr uses Ethos, which is an appeal to authority and credibility. He uses Pathos, which is an appeal to your emotions. He also uses logos, an appeal to logic and reason. Nicholas Carr developed his thesis by including ethos, pathos, and logos.
Throughout the article Author Nicholas Carr believes that technology is making people lazy and causing a lot of harm towards the human race. In Nicholas Carr’s articles he tends to not come off quite as persuasive as Steven Pinker throughout the whole use of rhetorical devices. However he establishes a strong form of ethos and credibility through the use of sources however doesn’t give a reason for the other side of the article. Throughout the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” Nicholas Carr seems to struggle to try to find a pattern of organization compared to the article “Mind over Mass Media where Steven Pinker does a great job with his organization skill. However author Steven Pinker had done an excellent job with getting his point across towards Author Nicholas Carr does a great job when it comes to getting his point across toward the reader with the use of the rhetorical devices Throughout Nicholas Carr’s article he actually does a great job when it comes to providing multiple examples throughout his article ”Is Google
Carr uses what society relies and trust the most to construct thought against what we have always been comfortable thinking. That the internet and Google may actually have an adverse affect on society and personal thought. It takes a great deal of rhetorical appeal to break out of human’s comfortable ideology and really think about what is actually going on. Pathos is a cleaver way to appeal to an audience and Carr does an amazing job using it. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” makes use of the rhetorical appeal pathos, to effectively deliver Nicholas Carr’s personal beliefs and concerns to the
In the two different texts titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, and “How Computers Change the Way We Think”, they both have unique points of view that not only complement each other, yet negate each other too. Carr’s essay focuses on how Google is changing the way we learn and look for new information. He mentions that he is not the only person to have noticed this, and goes on to give examples to help further explain how he and others came up with the idea. Turkle’s essay, titled “How Computers Change the Way We Think”, she focuses on the idea that technology itself is changing the way we interpret the information and why the material is sometimes different than how we remember it to be. She identifies numerous
In Nicholas Carr’s, “Is google making us stupid,” Carr indicates a problem that is affecting a majority of the internet users; that being as time we spend on the internet increases, the more we are diminishing our intellectual ability, and losing the ability to become intertwined in a lengthy article or an extended book. Carr states, the technology we are in contact with on a daily basis, has a negative effect on our cognitive ability, and is forcing our brain’s to evolve. Throughout the article, Carr argues the negative effect media, mainly the internet, is having on his capacity and concentration: he effectively argues his point through the uses of many rhetoric appeals, drawing in the reader. His use of logos compares the past and present
In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, Carr uses rhetorical strategies in order to persuade his readers into believing that the Internet is causing more harm to our thought process than good. He uses a lot of historical occurrences and studies to get his side of the argument through, but he doesn’t use enough modern incidences to help support his claims. He also appeals to pathos by using descriptive language and creating a fear based emotion to show just how serious this issue is. The strategy of ethos then comes in to bring everything together by connecting himself to the readers allowing him to stand out as a trustworthy individual. Without these rhetorical strategies, Carr’s argument would fail to be a solid and persuasive controversy.
In Carr’s essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” he makes his statement clear that he is against modern day technology and how much we rely on it in the present day. If there was one rhetorical appeal to choose that Carr favored, it would be pathos. Carr loved to use many other sources to credit so he could have sources to back him up. For example, he would claim he had a difficulty reading quoted many of his colleagues that were his age and had the same similar experiences. In his opinion, he believes that the internet is the cause of his ability to read as well as he could before be due to the internet and reading more online than a physical copy. For example, Scott Karp, a blogger, wrote, “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much
In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, he begins the article with a description of a scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the Space Odyssey Dave Bowman argues with the supercomputer, HAL. HAL pleads to Bowman to not disconnect his circuits that control his “brain”. The computer feels his mind going; this is a feeling that Carr has also had.
Nicholas Carr, an author who often writes about technology and culture issues, wrote the essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”(313). Carr begins his essay with the iconic script from Dave and HAL at the end of 2001:A Space Odyssey. He nervously explains, “ Over the past few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain… I'm not thinking they way I used to think…” (313). Carr has found trouble focusing on reading, often becoming fidgety, he links this to his frequent Web use (314). Those around him are having similar experiences, Scott Karp, a blogger, writes, “ What if I do all my reading on the Web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. Im just seeking convenience, but because the way I think has
In “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (2008), Carr maintains that the advent of the Internet has produced a shallow generation of information customers who lack the ability to deeply engage with and critically think about a text. To support his argument, Carr draws on personal and historical anecdotes and one study. By writing this article, Carr aims to open a dialogue about the potentially adverse effects the Internet could have on peoples’ cognitive processes. Carr establishes an informal relationship with the audience, which is primarily composed of well-educated individuals. Because this audience is educated, they are capable of critical thinking. However, because they are humans they are easily
In modern society, people have become over reliant on the internet and as a consequence of this, our ability to think critically has reduced significantly. An author that contributes to this point, Nicholas Carr, argues in his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, how the internet is turning people into weak-minded thinkers. Carr states his argument by bringing up multiple points such as how we’ve become too dependent on it, how we’ve spent a lot of time doing unproductive things on it, and how it does the majority of work for you. I believe that the internet can make people stupid, but that’s not its true intention. Despite some of the strong claims that he makes, I realized that the real issue is that people don’t know how to properly
In terms of lacking common sense and the relationship of physical things, yes, today’s generation is dumber. Technology robs people of the ability to think for themselves and have creativity and willingness to discover on their own. It is so easy to pick up a phone and ask Google a question and get a simplified answer that’s easy for comprehension. According to the Dictionary, the definition of dumb is, “simplify or reduce the intellectual content of something so as to make it accessible to a larger number of people.” That statement instantly makes me think of the internet. The web provides information that is easy to understand and it is available at any moment, making the population “dumb”.
Google is a practical search engine, which provides endless information in a matter of seconds. Google's development occurred in September of 1997 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Mcfadden 2017). It developed into a popular research tool in light of it capacity to perform quickly and accurately. Nicholas Carr argues in his article, “Is Google Making us Stupid?,” the web has evolved to impact the way humans think and process information. “Nicholas Carr writes on the social, economic, and business implications of technology” (Jacobs 2011). He received his masters in literature and language from Harvard University (Jacobs 2011). He claims humans’ physiological procedures are now adapted to a simple and immediate learning technique (3). Carr tries
Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The New Humanities Reader. 4th Boston: Wadsworth, 2012. 67-74. Print
There’s a lot of controversy about the internet transforming and changing our brains drastically, but not in a proper way. Is Google making us stupid? Many people believe this to be true, and it has been proven time and time again. This article was written in July and August of 2008 by Nicholas Carr, and he argues the statement that over many years, reading and writing has rehabilitated a lot because everything used to be written on paper and people’s focus was improved while reading on paper, but now everyone writes articles online, and it is more difficult to focus while reading, because there are many sites to look at and read, so many people just skip from article to article without ever thoroughly evaluating