Critical Thinking and Technical Communication

Even though Internet is the new way of communication and also helps one to keep in touch with the loved ones even when they are miles apart; technology is slowly changing us. We used to use our intelligence before for things and now we are depending on the internet and technology. In the article, “Is Google making us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr talks about what the internet is doing to our brains. He explains, that internet is taking over our intelligence, and taking over our thinking ability. Carr talks about his own experience of how he used to read a long, length article very easily and now since everything is online, he is having difficulties concentrating in article because he is forced to use a technology. “Immersing myself in a book or a

In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Nicholas Carr explains how the Internet is somewhat removing the way humans tend to concentrate on certain things. He also explains how people think differently then they usually would because of how the Internet may cause them to view things. Even though the Internet may help in a variety of ways, it does influence the way humans may think and learn as a process together. Carr’s argument is effective because he shows the affect the Internet has on humans in ways such as, not being able to read lengthy articles and books, the use of a type writer, and the lack of his own creditability within the article.

As Carr continues, he speaks of his extended use of the internet over the last decade, explaining that all information that he once painstakingly searched for is done in minutes with the use of search engines. In doing this, Carr places blame on the internet for breaking his ability to concentrate. Carr presents his arguments in a way that his readers could easily agree. He gradually works up to the idea that the internet has weakened his ability to focus, and as he does this he makes several general statements about the internet’s nature. These points on the net’s nature are so basic that any reader of his article would be inclined to agree with them, and this lends itself to help readers believe the argument Carr wishes to propose. Because it would be hard to provide factual evidence to support his claims, Carr effectively uses logical reasoning to convince the reader.

“The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing” (Carr 773). Carr’s point is because people are using the web, it is making it harder for them to concentrate and process information. Carr and Turkle both suggest in their articles that people now have lost the ability to be able to concentrate and to be

In his writing, Carr explains how his mind has become much more erratic since his use of the internet. “I get fidgety, lose the thread, [and] begin looking for something else to do,” Carr says (572). The availability of information that people have these days is astonishing, and their intake of it is even more considerable. In connection to the information people have access to in our day and age, it has promoted a culture of disinterest and boredom. You are able to see this clearly in a study of online research habits, conducted by scholars from University College London. The subjects displayed “a form of skimming activity,” jumping from source to source. They normally would read no more than one or two pages of a book or article before they would go to another site, seldom returning to any source they had already viewed.

As time progresses in our technologically propelled era and the internet continues to provide as the largest network source of information, our intellectual perception of information takes on a more distinctive and less analytical approach than before. The use of the internet has seized control over the vast connection of neural pathways in our minds, influencing our experiences and essentially hindering our natural ability to apply cognitive thinking.

Never has a communications system played so many roles in our lives--or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts--as the Internet does today.

According to Nicholas Carr, the internet has had an effect on how we read, think and live. He provides examples of this throughout his essay. In one of his statements he says “the net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information [we receive]” (732) He gathers this information from other colleagues and friends he knows. People can access the internet and in a few clicks to have all the information they need and more. We are no longer limited by local sources to gather our data. At the speed of light, the voices of millions can be heard by all. It is the quick access and our human desire for knowledge that feeds the need for the internet. It has damaged our level of patience and causing our minds to wander. “And what

Not only is the way we view the world being altered, but also the way in which we receive information. Because the internet makes finding the answer to a question so easy, humans are beginning to want everything in an instant. I think the Internet has changed our expectations of comprehending text by reading and analyzing the text, to get it quickly and with giving little to no effort, or as some call it, “brain sweat”. Although it may seem that there is nothing wrong with taking a more efficient way, computers can only do so much. We must be able to recognize social ques and communicate with others. I agree with Carr’s statement that “if we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only to ourselves,

“The Net seizes our attention only to scatter it,” Carr says. Then the Swedish neuroscientist Torkel Klingberg tells Carr human beings “wants more information, more impression, and information complexity”. “When our brains is overtaxed, we find ‘distractions more distracting,’” and “we can’t translate new information into schemas, while our ability to learn suffers”. “The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing,” writes Carr. Bruce Friedman, a blogger who describes how the internet is altering his mental habits to Carr told him “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the Web or in print”. Jim Taylor, Ph.D. writes in his article. “Using the internet is like a jet skiing, in which the jet skier is skimming along the surface of the water at high seed exposed to a broad vista, surrounding by many distractions, and only able to focus fleetingly on one

I feel as though Nicholar Carr succeeded in demonstrating the importance of how the Internet changes our brain’s ability to absorb information. The opposing views of his claim would be that there is not a change in our thinking or that the Internet is not what is responsible for that change. My position is most closely aligned with Carr’s. I believe that the Internet’s convenience has altered the expectations we have for how easily information should be presented. We prefer information to be short, to-the-point, tidbits that are easy to

In Nicholas Carr’s book What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains the Shallows (2008) the author explains the cause and effects of the newly made Internet with individuals’ thought processing and the major impact the Net has had on the world. Carr supports his assertion by rectifying suspicions and using evidence derived from experiments and years of research to explain how “the brain’s thinking process is changing when the Internet is a deciding factor.” (Carr, 2010, p. 120) The writer implies that in order for the Net to completely envelop and change our thinking process, we mustn’t forget our original cognitive linear thought processing gained from reading and writing. Nicholas Carr establishes a personal basis to reach out to intended readers to touch all areas and aspects of the study.

The main idea that Carr tries to support throughout his article is that of alteration. Carr takes a stand for the idea that technology, specifically the internet, is the cause of the recent change in the way people think. Throughout Carr’s article, it is clear that the change being referenced is the way people think, read, and ultimately understand what they read in books, magazines, internet, and media. In the article, the author uses his own experiences and detailed accounts of how others feel about the way their minds work since the

Nicholas Carr writes on how the Internet has changed the way people now think in his is article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. Carr says “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski.” He is trying to express that their once was a time that even he was guilty of the internet taking over. He was a guy who would once bury his self in books, read every word, and let it soak in and understand every detail of the book, but now will skim across it to just understand the basics of it. Further into his article Carr goes on about how the internet is becoming our map, clock, typewriter, calculator, phone, radio, and our TV. The internet is “subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies” he says. What was once all separate things we needed to use our brain

Through his research, the author gradually found that other people may be in the same situation as he is since their thinking pattern could only adapt to the instant, compendious messages and information whose literal meaning is in internet form. People have therefore started to depend more on the internet for information