It has happened many times, reading a full page only to realize none of the information was retained. Was it always this way? Nicholas Carr thinks he knows what happening, in “Is Google Making us Stupid?” he discusses the fact that technology is having a negative impact on our thinking and learning. He holds the belief that technology is changing the way our brains process information, which is affecting attention spans and the ability to think critically. Carr’s article is an effective analysis on the impact technology has on our brains.
Starting his article, Carr’s use of personal stories and experiences further his point. He talks about the issues he’s had with concentrating on long readings since technology has become more prevalent in
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Carr uses Friedrich Nietzsche’s story of losing his sight and how the changing of his medium from pen and paper to a typewriter affected his writing (318). Carr discusses how the use of new technologies, no matter what time period, has effects on the way people think. Carr’s use of Nietzsche as an example is extremely successful. For one, Nietzsche is a trusted public figure who is known for his intelligence and writing. This is also a clear example that relates to Carr’s message, making it easy for the reader to connect this example to the subject. The use of a figure makes his argument that technology has a larger effect on mankind is made easy to believe due to the trustworthiness of Nietzsche in his example. The reader also believes that if a great mind like Nietzsche was affected by technology, surely they are being affected as well. Carr’s use of a popular philosopher only serves to further his …show more content…
He includes quotes from large, technology tycoons who believe that advancement in technology is beneficial because it is making information more accessible and more useful. Carr counters this claim by stating that with the large advancements that technology “Is doing the work of the mind” (324). While he addresses naysayers in his argument he does not completely dismiss their ideas, instead discussing them in a calm way that builds his credibility with the reader. Though Carr believes the most important thing that technology is doing is getting close to replacing human thinking, he discusses the ideas that people believe could be a positive. His rational discussion of the opposition makes him appear knowledgeable to the reader which further builds his argument. His ability to remain level headed and sensible prove that this an effective addition to the
Friedrich Nietzche, a famous writer, was going blind it was difficult for him to focus on his writings anymore, until one day he bought a type writer. He mastered typing until he could type with his eyes closed. He could write again, words flowed from his mind on the ink stained pages. Yet this had a troublesome effect on cars writing, it was a noticeable change in his writing. Carr uses the invention of the clock to further his argument on the changes in our brain.
He gets off topic many times; and starts rambling about things like the printer press replacing computers. At one point, he’s talking about clocks and you find yourself asking how is this relevant? Carr, somehow, wrote this whole article without ever diving deeply into the original topic. Every paragraph is something new, him talking about a new subject that barely relates to the original topic of this essay, and he struggles to make connections we can understand. In his effort to keep your attention he uses fancy word play.
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
Rhetorical Analysis In the article “Is Google Making us Stupid?”, author Nicholas Carr expresses his idea that the internet is taking over society and our thinking process. Google is affecting our abilities to read books, longer articles, and even older writings. Carr believes that we have become so accustomed to the ways of the internet, and we are relying on Google 's ability to sort through the details for us so we don 't have to, in order to get the information we find necessary more efficiently. He finds that this process has become almost too handy, and that it is corrupting us from becoming better educated.
Nicholas Carr wrote the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?’’ where he tries to argue out his opinion. The article is about reading which is being eroded to his belief. Carr believes the deep reading is now a struggle due to spending time online. He describes the web as a valuable tool but it has a bad impact on concentration. He points out that people read more because of the Web but deep concentration to reading printed books is disengaged.
Carr uses comparison to examine the past and the present to persuade the reader that there has been a change due to technology. Carr claims “immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up
He uses examples all the way back to when the printing press was first invented, and the influence citizens thought it would have on intellect, to the founders of Google and how their goal of artificial intelligence. Most prominent example would be how the influence of technology changed the style of, German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche's work. After he started having a hard time with his vision he purchased a type writer, that after he learned how to touch type, aloud him to write with his eyes closed and once again record his thoughts. If you read Carr's article you will come across the selection where a correspondence between Nietzsche and a German media scholar, Friedrich A. Kittler, describe how his “style” of writing has changed after he changed the medium of his writing. This sums up the claim that advancements in technology tend to effect how we think and therefore the actions that we
All of these components add up to greatly increase the pathos present in Carr's essay. He ties this reference to the current state of the human population by claiming that we, too, are losing our minds. This puts the reader in the shoes of the computer, and it is a jarring realization. Furthermore, Carr uses a testimony from Bruce Friedman, a blogger who focuses on the use of computers in medicine. Friedman admits that "[he] can't read 'War and Peace' anymore...
Nicholas Carr, a writer and literature major, took the time to write his opinion about the new technologies and how they are shaping us today. He did this in his work “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. Carr explores the changes technology has on the world and the way people think. He argues that “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding
Some of his main points that he pointed out was that how we have became too reliant on the Internet and never really learn the material because we have such easy access to this information. Just like how Plato explained on a stone slab a thousand years ago, and just like my example about my truck. Also he mentions that how our minds are becoming warped with reading tons of quick articles that are full of information and having a negative effect on us when we try to read long lengthy articles or books together information, without drifting off and not paying attention to the reading. Finally Carr’s main point of his reading is that he is just worried for up in coming generation of internet users are going to become to dependent on the internet, and even try to make a super computer that is smarter than our brain. Lastly I do believe in what Carr is talking about of how we are becoming to depend towards the Internet, and that how it is shaping our minds.
Carr tells of a man from the 1880s named Friedrich Nietzsche and his issue of failing vision. Nietzsche solves his problem by buying a typewriter and learning to write without the use of his eyes. However, one of Nietzsche’s friends noticed that his writings had changed stylistically, “His already terse prose had become even tighter, more telegraphic” (Carr 319). Since writing for Nietzsche had switched from pen and paper to typing on a machine, his ideas altered from human-like passionate and emotional text to straight and mechanical sentences.
Nietzsche writing “changed from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style.” (qtd. Nietzsche 18). Moving on with the theory, Carr then discusses the work of sociologist Daniel bell which concludes that the tools we use instead of our mental and physical capacities we inevitably begin to take on qualities of those technologies (Carr 18). Similarly internet is incorporating our other intellectual technologies like calculating, typewriting and our radio and tv.
He tries the explain the natural development of technology and how it is leading us to artificial intelligence, but in doing this he does not add into in his argument. The objective of companies like Google attempting to supplement our intelligence with artificial intelligence does not have any measurable outcome in the real world. The counterargument is trying to take something that he believes may happen in the future vs. something that he has explained to be experienced over time. While it is possible that he is trying to warn about the future to this problem, this argument does not supplement his argument that we are losing our attention span when it comes to long readings online. Carr is only deviated from what he is trying to convince the reader, and this only adds to the tangled mess that his arguments are in
Carr is effective in his argument by sharing his fears and personal experiences to have an effect on the audience utilizing pathos and ethos. Not only does he include his own experience, but he also includes other people’s point of views. He goes on to support his claim of how technology
The Influence of Technology In the essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr argues that utilization of the internet has an adverse effect on our way of thinking and functioning in everyday life. Whether it be reading a newspaper, or scrolling through Facebook, internet media has forever stamped its name in our existence. Carr explains to us that the internet is a tool used every single day in today’s society, but also makes most of us complacent with the ease of having the world at our fingertips.