Summary Of Is Google Making USupid By Nicholas Carr

With just a few keystrokes and a press of the enter key, Google connects users to the information they’re looking for. Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” explores the phenomenon that people will skim through articles and leave from one site to another. Carr in addition, adds in anecdotes of some of history's greatest inventions and how they similarly relate to the Web. Although the Internet has transformed the way we receive and send information, I feel as if the responsibilities of reading are simply left to us to find out because we take the information for granted. “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, is a 2008 article that delves into the strange finding that people seem to skip through articles and leave a trail of websites without actually understanding the material. Carr describes himself over the past few years as being inadequate of reading a full book. He formulates a theory saying that the Internet is a “universal medium”, where people have instant access to almost any topic imaginable. Because of the accessibility of the Internet,

Carr mentions Friedrich Nietzsche, who was a German philosopher and a poet. Nietzsche’s eyesight was diminishing, making the task of reading and writing a page almost impossible. Nietzsche purchased a typewriter in the hopes that it would save his career. He practiced every day by learning how to touch type extensively and eventually reached the skill to write out his own thoughts. Eventually, one of Nietzsche’s friends had seen a change in his own writing style. Nietzsche’s friend noticed Nietzsche had written much more complex writings than he used to when he wrote using a pen and paper. Carr uses this anecdote to illustrate the human mind is “infinitely malleable”. James Olds, a professor at George Mason University, says “Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. The brain has the ability to reprogram on the fly, altering the way it functions” (Carr,