Response to Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?’
Nicholas Carr forewarns of an ever growing trend that links how our brains process and concentrate on information and the Internet in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” He then proceeds to reweave the tale woven by Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey, telling of how the protagonist removes the “brain” of a highly intelligent supercomputer named HAL. In this scene, HAL is seen pleading with the character for his life, and as the character ignores him and continues removing his brain, HAL states that he can feel his mind leaving him and the author concludes by saying that he too feels his mind leaving him. He then clarifies what he means by saying that his mind is not actually going but that
…show more content…
I disagree with Carr’s anecdotal and personal evidence and his conclusion on the study, and I agree with the points Carr makes about Taylorism and its links to the Internet. First of all, the personal and anecdotal evidence he presents is difficult to use as conclusive evidence due to the fact that he notices these changes in only himself and his peers, not factoring in either a younger or older audience. Those of us who have always used the Internet and basically avoid books at all costs have found the Internet to be an incredibly efficient tool for learning and deep thinking. All that is required is to use the platform correctly, looking for those environments that best suit deep learning on the Internet. The broadness of the Internet is also a major factor. Because the Internet is so large, there exists varying environments which are designed with different intentions and effects. Blogs are often written in a format that is easy to skim through while other portions of internet are designed with deep reading and thinking in mind. For example, the website gutenburg.org furthers a mission called Project Gutenberg which attempts to digitalize and archive cultural works of literature to then
In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicolas Carr analyzes the dramatic affects that technologies have been having on our brains. The short summary, the Net is making us all mindless zombies in Carr’s mind, but he is not the only who feels that way. His long dragged out article is abundantly full of meaning examples, personal opinions, and hard facts on the drastic changes the Net has done to our brains. Carr starts his articles with the death of super computer, HAL, from the movie A Space Odyssey.
In Nicholas Carr’s writing, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” mentions multiple examples of why the internet and the simplicity of looking up and getting exactly what we were looking for are causing a drop in the way we think and the intelligence of our minds. Carr explains that he was once a huge reader and could comprehend ten to fifteen-page articles easily, but the directness of the internet had dulled his brain that he could not read a few paragraphs before he gave up and his mind started drifting off into the emptiness of his brain. Carr mentions that the Net is being the universal medium causing information that is read and learned go in one ear and out the other. Carr defends his positions by adding multiple examples showing that the Net
Is Google Making Us Stupid? Throughout Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, he goes over what he believes the internet is doing to our brains, and why it may be bad. To begin, Carr describes that he himself had felt that something in his brain was changing. He felt a significant change is his thinking, reasoning, and concentration skills, especially when it came to reading.
In Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (2008), the Pulitzer Prize finalist claims that the evolving age of technology, particularly the Internet, is damaging our cognitive attention. Carr initially presents his argument through a series of anecdotes that make the topic more understandable; thereafter, he backs up his main points with numerous different types of supportive evidence. Relatable stories of how the technologic advancements are causing a neural retrogression amongst the general population are provided in order to show what the Internet is really doing to our minds and hopefully inform us about the dangerous path we are on. Carr’s use of both academic and casual language entertains the audience with a complex and
Nicholas Carr is a writer who writes in these kind of field: technology, business, and culture. Carr wrote this essay called, “Is Google Making us Stupid”; Carr fully explains how internet changes people’s thinking, a way of reading, and knowledge with rhetoric strategies. For logos, Carr thoroughly supports his arguments with great supporting points from credit sources. He explains how the internet affects us in reading. For pathos, he points out that human’s brain would work differently since we are using the internet widely comparing to the generation, whom lives without the internet.
In Nicholas Carr's article, “Is Google making us Stupid?” (731-745) his thesis is, “...what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.” (733) According to Carr, the Internet affects the way that we read, think, and live. It affects the way we read because through the continued use of the Internet we have been conditioned to skim through information quickly and efficiently.
not so much because the way I read has changed… but because the way I think has changed.” (Carr, 557 & 558) Nicholas also uses Bruce Friedman, another blogger, as an example. Bruce makes a statement “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a long article on the Web or in print.” (Carr, 558) Bruce can no longer read a blog that is more than three or four paragraphs because it is too much to absorb so he decides just to skim it. (Carr, 558) With these examples in mind, it shows that many people understand the depth of this problem because the internet is affecting people worldwide, especially
Scott Karp, a blogger he follows, discusses the same idea as Carr that we do all our reading on the web because that’s the way we are programmed to think nowadays. This appeals to us using pathos but the only reason we listen to what they are discussing is because we figure that in the event that more than one person has the same idea then it has to be right. It a majority rules situation. He uses the resource of Maryanne Wolf to create a backing ground for his reasoning that, “We are not only what we read, we are how we read.”
Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” was published in an 2008 July/August issue of the Atlantic, argues a personal story of how deep reading for him has become difficult because of the distractions of the internet. Carr uses both personal experiences and the testimonies of others to argue that media is impacting the process of thought. Carr communicated with two other bloggers, Scott Karp and Bruce Friedman, and understands that his inability of not being able to deep read due to media alternating his thought, is shared by others too. A five-year research program conducted by scholars at the University College London observed the documents of computer logs and claimed that people are now beginning to skim or “power browse” from article to article instead of the reading in the traditional sense. Carr also admires
In the article” Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Nicholas Carr is trying focus on the audience to capture the audience attention. Also the internet is making people mentally handicapped. People are becoming lazy. Instead of analyzing the book to answer the question, people are typing the questions in on the internet to get the answers the lazy way. People’s brains are negatively affected.
The scientific research is in its infancy but the effects are far reaching. From this research a few things have come to light. The Internet has changed the way that people think. The Internet has also made a generation of technological whiz kids lacking in deep thinking skills as a whole. To the question that was asked the answer is an affirmative and resounding
Rhetorical Analysis (Is Google Making Us Stupid?) Over the years, search engines such as Google, have made it incredibly convenient to further our knowledge with just a touch of a button. In Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains,” the focus is set on proving why the Internet is to blame for the typical American mind to think differently than it used to.
Carr could have not said it any better, “what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away at my capacity for concentration and contemplation.” It has immobilized my ability to think on my own and read in-depth. Once again, technology has wiggled its way back into my life. Since reading this article, I have caught myself becoming dependent on the Internet. If I ever have questions,I automatically take out one of my devices and look up the question.
Shawntae Aikens Technology has a found a way into our lives where we use it everyday, and some have come to the point where they depend on it. People have become concerned that the Internet is becoming a distraction and has taken over our lives. The Internet, and social media has become very addicting our smartphones have given us the chance to have the internet and social media at our hands at all times. Nicholas Carr, a writer for the Atlantic Online, wrote the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Within his article he discusses his opinion on how the internet is something that is not helping us at all.
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.