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 …show more content…
Carr describes the way our brains have changed as a consequence of using media. He later reports that when new or improved technology enters our lives, we begin to take on the qualities of those technologies, because it changes our “intellectual technologies”. He also uses the analogy of a clock, presenting the idea that we eat, work, sleep, and rise based on what time of day it is, instead of listening to our own senses. Carr then uses the claim from a 1936 British mathematician named Alan Turing that computing systems are subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies such as our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and our television. Likewise, he explains how the internet assumes what we are thinking and injects its context with hyperlinks, blinking ads, headlines, and other propaganda. Carr talks about the effects of Google by stating its company mission; “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”by becoming the “perfect search engine” and understand exactly what you mean and give you back exactly what you
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.
Every day new technology is advancing to makes its way into the world where it is used more efficiently. In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,”, Nicholas Carr claims that human are no longer able to focus on longer texts due to the rise of digital texts. Nicholas Carr includes strong evidences to support his statement; and through the usage of ethos and pathos, he is able to convince his readers that “the Net is becoming a universal medium” (Carr). Examples of Ethos are evident throughout the article making Carr’s argument deductively valid. Nicholas Carr is known for his reputation as someone who has written influential pieces and earning many awards for his accomplishments.
In “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, the author, Nicholas Carr, is arguing against the effect of our increased access to information. He is unsettled by the common idea that we’d all “be better off” if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence. Carr describes how am immediate access to a rich store of information from the Net has shaped his process of thought by reducing his capacity for concentration and contemplation. He is worried that placing efficiency and immediacy above all else is weakening our capacity to make rich mental connections that form when we read deeply without distraction. Carr uses an anecdote of the printing press to demonstrate how equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.
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
In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr clearly states his thesis and the idea that not only is google changing the way we as humans think, read, and write, but all of technology is affecting us in our everyday lives. The internet sources such as Google are created to find information fast and easy for users. Google does all the searching and hard work of having to read through huge articles. We are humans have it easy now, we no longer have to do all the reading and digging around of endless articles and papers.
In the article Nicholas Carr published called “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (Carr, 557) he explains how the Web and technology has impacted us. He also has written several books and articles about technology, business, and culture. (Carr, 556) I believe Nicholas has enough background information to be reliable for what is in his article.
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
In “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, Nicholas Carr argues that the Internet is the reason why people are losing their ability to focus, think critically, and is somehow hindering the brain. Carr speaks the thought that the Internet is effecting the way people, and himself think, live, and read. He shows this through examples from other people and his personal experiences. He thinks that it is not an intelligent thing to rely on a computer to give people information. Carr explains how since he spends a lot of time online, he is not able to focus on other things that are not involving the internet.
Nicholas Carr whom wrote “Is Google Making Us Stupid” explains the negative consequences of the increasing presence of the internet in society’s everyday lives, and his predictions of their future. He explains how the internet is so embedded in their everyday lives that it is hard for society to imagine what life would be like without it. I agree with some of his points, such as how the internet has changed the way society reads which is consequently changing the way they think. Society may read more in this day in age than ever before, but it is a different type of reading, the majority of the reading consists of quickly scanning short articles on the internet while often simultaneously juggling different tasks.
In his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” Nicholas Carr expresses his view on technology. He touches on ideas about how technology has evolved and how it changes how humans view the world. He makes the points that technology is widely accessible and frequently used. Carr shows how technology changed the style of earlier writers’ pieces. Carr believes that how the earlier writers wrote contributed to the style of their works.
In The Atlantic “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr notifies us on the ways that technology is effecting our brains in a negative way. This article starts off by talking about the internet and how it is and can be the source for almost anything. That being said, we are becoming defenseless on technology in things like work, reading, and writing. This article demands that this technology is a very big disturbance in our lives. We practically live off of this technology and commonly this media has to live up to the expectations, which us, as the audience have everything handed to us.
They state that because of the convenience of the internet they simply prefer doing so by that form of media, as they do so they become further implemented in the “phenomenon” that the internet is causing as Carr calls it. The clock, like computers today, has changed the way we approach day to day life as we became more dependent on it to tell us what to do and when to do it from the day it was introduced. The internet has become the largest source of information, through it the possibilities of information far surpass what a library could supply, though Carr believes that with it comes the negative aspect of the internet, as it surrounds such information with all the possible content that drags the reader’s trail of
After reading the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, our group came to a decision that we agreed with Carr. Google is, in fact, making us stupid. Throughout the article, Carr emphasizes how our minds are changing as a result of the time we spend online. Throughout the article, Carr makes the argument that the internet has affected how human beings process and retain information. The problem with the internet that Carr addresses are that media does not just supply information to the users, it also shapes the thoughts that flow in the people's minds.
Overall, Nicholas Carr’s article succeeds in persuading his claim that Google makes people stupid in the article. His whole argument about the Internet has changed the audience way of thinking. He uses rhetorical techniques that are aimed at an audience that will believe him, people like millennials or even an older audience that knew what the internet was like before it was so common.
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.