Is Google Making USupid By Nicholas Carr

The meaningful phrase, “I can feel it.” Carr can feel it too. In fact, many of his friends and one popular blogger can all feel the tolls of the Net rewiring their brains. Concentrating on a long book or article used to be easy for Carr

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.

Carr’s credibility increases as he quotes many known writers

In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, the author suggests that modern technology is changing the way him and other people think. He argues that, in the past, it was much easier to engage in long readings. Now, he claims, reading is more challenging and people are more likely to skim a passage rather than fully absorb the information due to excessive use of the internet (313-314). Carr uses Friedrich Nietzsche’s relationship with his typewriter as an example to express that with every new technology, he warns, the human mind is vulnerable to a change in structure (319). Carr observes and suggests that the more people use and rely on computers, the more the human mind essentially becomes a form of artificial intelligence

Carr writes quite a lengthy article to support his opinion. He writes quite a lengthy article, and you can feel how

Throughout his opening of his essay, the reader may be convinced about his viewpoint on online resources, but not entirely. During this point of his essay, personal accounts are only being stated, instead of logical outside information to support his argument. This is presumed that this is his reason for use of hyperbole. Prior to his opening of the essay, his title states a bold statement, foreshadowing his opinions on the topic. Besides his overdramatic examples from A Space Odyssey, Carr does use some metonymy in his title.

This quote emphasizes how he uses anecdotes to relate to something we all have struggled and gone through before. Any person that feels like reading has been harder due to new technological advances can somehow find a way to relate to the

“Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore” (Carr 32). The internet has taken a personal toll on Carr, in which he cannot even look at a long piece of writing, because it has become so unfamiliar to him. He has become accustomed to the internet, and therefore replaces his passion of reading.

Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid” was published when the internet was still taking hold in a person’s everyday life. Throughout this article, he talks about how the internet is making our brains lazy because we do not have to go in depth to find what we are looking for. Ever since he started to use the internet, Carr thinks that the of the internet has made it so that he can no longer focus on a long article or research a topic. In this article Carr uses many examples of logos, ethos, and pathos to effectively convey his argument in a way that will convince the reader to believe his arguments.

Previous generations used encyclopedias or went to the library to gather information for schoolwork or any reports that needed written. Carr states “the faster we surf across the Web – the more links we click and pages we view – the more opportunities google and other companies gain to collect information about us and feed us advertisements” (Carr 325). Therefore, google is getting us to buy into its advertisements and spend money on products that we do not need. Carr also states, “it almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense” (Carr 317). With there being so many distractions on the Internet, people are not able to absorb the information they are reading.

He writes about a feeling of a change of thought process he gets when he reads. Reading books or lengthy articles came easily to Carr, but now he cannot stay focused on what he reads for more than a few pages. He believes his struggle to concentrate on long texts originates from spending too much time online, saying that any kind of research he needs can be found and fulfilled in minutes. Carr also explains that reading online has been converted to skimming pages and searching for summaries of his desired info, instead of reading full length articles. When an author, such as Carr, can directly relate to the subject, it makes his writing much more sincere and

“We are how we read” (qtd. in Carr 2) . The internet promotes a style of reading “that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else” (Carr 2) Maryanne Wolf stated that “when we read online . . . we tend to become “mere decoders of information””

Nicolas Carr, an acclaimed writer in both business and technology, argues in “"Is Google Making Us Stupid?” published in 2008, that the internet is altering the way humans focus. In his article, Carr states “Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages” (Carr). Using first person personal experience this permits readers to presuppose that everyone is justly and effortlessly exposed to the impacts of the internet. Additionally accrediting himself, a prosperous and educated writer, Carr adds reliability and support towards his argument demonstrating that a literate, knowledgeable man can be susceptible to the effects of the internet. Scientific studies have been done which support the theory that the internet is deteriorating

Article are getting shorter, and people are thinking about what they read less. As explained by Nicholas Carr in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, technology is impacting our thinking. Carr believes that people are not thinking deeply, and we have a much shorter attention span when it comes to information that we consume online. Although thought provoking, Carr’s article does not provide enough evidence to support his thesis.

Nowadays, the internet is the biggest marketing and media tool that people can use today. It can have various effects on people’s daily life ranging from bad to beneficial. In the essay “Is Google making us stupid” by Nicholas Carr writes about how internet usage in the 21st century is changing people’s reading habit and a cognitive concentration. Particularly, he emphasizes on Google’s role in this matter and its consequences on making people machine like. Carr also stated that the online reading largely contributes to people’s way of reading a book.