Summary Of Is Google Making USupid By Nicholas Carr

Andy Newton
Critical Analysis
“Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr
 In the essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” by Nicholas Carr, the author presents an argument of how people tend to think their minds work like the latest technology and how throughout history this has improved productivity. Carr uses historical examples of inventions that greatly altered the way we live, work, and manage our lives. Some innovative examples he used were: the introduction of time keeping instruments, Frederick Winslow Taylor’s revolutionizing of words to spread information, factory processes, Writing and printing words to spread information, and the current day internet and the informational search engine, Google. Carr’s argumentative structure is that people tend to remodel their content consumption and thinking processes to the latest advancement in technology. He expands his claim in that people migrate towards the fastest way to acquire information and utilize methods which increase their productivity.

He explains how the creation of the printing press was believed to make people “less studious and weakening their minds,” (Carr) because the printing press allowed the common man to read almost anything at a time when books had to be handwritten. He also gives the example of the clock being brought into everyday life in the 14th Century and how it gave scientists a more understandable way to mathematically prove their theories, so more people could understand. These examples give the reader a better sense of the author’s point of view. He argues the internet has become one of these new technologies that many people were skeptical about, but he proves to the reader how it became an important advancement in content