Google Making USupid Argument

In his article entitled Is Google Making Us Stupid?, Carr expresses his concern over the way the internet is changing our brains. Every since he started skim reading on the internet he’s lost his ability to read for a long time; “Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do” (Carr 314). Our minds have adapted to reading on the internet. We take in vast amounts of information in a short period of time and so anything that’s long can’t hold our attention. We are no longer to analyze and think deeply about texts because we can’t focus for that long. I definitely feel the effect of skim reading. I do read a lot but I don’t deep read. Whenever I’m trying

Nicholas Carr answers the question “Is Google making us stupid,” with claims and evidence from other individuals who have noticed a difference in their own reading, writing, and interpretation skills after spending too much time on the internet. Scanning quickly through online articles and skipping from link to link is what is leading individuals to a lack of deep reading and thought, as oppose to actually understanding and interpreting the text. By using other individuals personal experiences and evidence regarding the issue, Carr constructs the argument that Google, is indeed, making us stupid.

In this article: Is Google Making Us Stupid ? NICHOLAS CARR reveals the epidemic effects of having the internet at our fingertips. The creation of Google has been an amazing feat that has changed the face of the Internet. A project that would usually take weeks using books, magazines, and encyclopedias can be done in the matter of days. He and his associates have stated personal effects of being accustomed to the Internet (specifically Google) . As a writer, he has problems reading for a prolong period of time or instead of reading an article, skimming it instead. He states his future worries of our generation losing the skills that allow us to have the willpower to read a book or complete a common task. Our cognition is greatly affected by the ease of obtaining information so

Carr starts the article with a quote from 2001: A Space Odyssey. He explains the quote, talking about how the human is rewiring the computer, but then he parallels that with how computers have rewired his brain. I didn’t know who Nicholas Carr was, so I researched him. He is a highly respected author who has written for the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. It appears that he relies heavily on his fame to convince readers of his point of view, because he uses his opinion quite often. Admittedly, he is something of an expert on the subject, but if the reader, like I, doesn’t know who he is, then a lot of this article is not effective.

This research shows that people are not actually reading their source but hoping that maybe they will get their answer in “skimming” of the article. If they did not find what they needed right away they would just move on. The reader of the article would get a better understand of what they are looking for if they would read the article all the way, even if it is not what they are directly looking for it could give them some back ground. Carr stated in the article “ the internet is subsuming most of our other intellectual technology. It’s becoming our map, clock, print press…” (Paragraph 17). The internet is in all of our lives as stated above but it has been for a long time. For example the clock; people would look at the clock at noon and know that they are suppose to eat but before they had a clock people

In “Is Google Making us stupid”, Carr explains how the brain is malleable and how the internet might be shaping it by literally rewiring the brains network. Carr gives a brief example of how neurons can be made and broke depending on what things shape the way things are done. By being used to instant searching and internet preferences, the brain reprograms itself in being used that certain way. He thinks by using the internet so much, we will become more and more objective and quick thinkers, and ultimately emotionless computers. He also gives examples of how the clock and typewriter changed our way of thinking in the past. Adapting this way will rewire thought processes and continue to dictate how we act. Carr’s theory may be more obvious as we continue to be reliant on technology. (Carr)

Nicholas Carr’s 2008 article in The Atlantic, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, argues that the Internet and access to vast amounts of information is corroding the attention spans and thought complexity of the billions of Internet users around the world. As Carr himself puts it, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” (Carr) He proposes that having many different sources at once will cause readers to skip around sporadically rather than thoughtfully consume information, and that Google has an agenda to cause this behavior due to their economic interests. Overall, Carr paints a cynical outlook on the prevalence in Google and any societal changes stemming from its use. David Weir’s 2010

Is Google making us stupid? Nicholas Carr posed the question via “The Atlantic” in 2008 and received an uproar of feedback. His argument was that the internet might have detrimental effects on cognitive capacity. The article in itself, according to online critics, was targeted more at the World Wide Web than at Google, specifically. Throughout the six page piece, he argued that reading on the internet is a shallower comparison to putting your nose in a book. Since then, the topic has been widely debated.

But firstly, he has to get audience’s attention by narrating a conversation in A Space Odyssey in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001. Then he believed that the Internet has changed his mind, he was mentioning that he cannot concentrate a reading book like he used to do. He thinks he know what’s going on in his mind, he starts to become bored after two or three pages. He uses evidence and quotations from various authors and expert that mention the Internet may affect our capacity for deep reading and the Internet is going to replace the way reading in the traditional sense. He used the speech from the CEO of Google to mention and show us that Google is inventing the search engine because of money. The technologies can rescue and solve any problem in the fastest way like the typewriter can replace for writing by hand, the mechanical clock can change habits and behaviors of human now. By those evidence and background issues above, Carr is showing us the Trait of Human Nature that people now embrace new technology, resist and who are indifferent. Also he is inviting the audience to agree with him that the Internet, technology and Google are bringing the distraction for our mind so we cannot concentrate on what is called self-dependent.

Carr begins his essay by introducing readers to the idea that, although the Internet can be quite helpful, it may be the leading cause in the lack of concentration skills this generation possesses. He begins by explaining how in recent years, he experienced great difficulty in dealing with his shortened attention span, the same way his “literary type” friends have (93). By drawing on few experiences other than his own, Carr begins to group everyone into the same category, therefore creating a hasty generalization

The internet sparked a new age of technology that may change the way our brains work. In the essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr discusses his concern about the internet’s effects on our intelligence. He was once an avid reader, much like many of his colleagues, yet many of them can no longer dive into a thick novel. The power of Google has prevailed in terms of efficiently gaining information, so they all became fonder of scanning than in-depth reading. Carr even provides experimental evidence that people who are browsing the web tend to only stay on the same page for a short amount of time and rarely go back to it. This is unlike the way he used to spend weeks deciphering long texts. He acknowledges that this new type of reading is a larger part of our lives than any other form of communication that came before the internet, and that our brains will reprogram in order to take on these new qualities. He also notices that the systematic efficiency we created through industrialization is prominent in the Google search engine, and fears this could one day be implemented into our thought process, ending the ambiguity that results from our curiosities. The internet, and the massive amounts of readily available information that comes with it, can actually transform the way we think and perceive information, but it should be something we embrace, because we can utilize it to enhance society.

Carr’s argument, boiled down, is basically that, due to the vast and easily accessed amount of information available on the internet, people are being “reprogrammed” to pass over that information quickly rather than furthering a “deeper comprehension and understanding” of it. He also argues that the internet (and, by extension, computers) are splitting our attention, forcing it away from what we are reading though advertisements and pop-up or notifications, furthering the issue of our shallow comprehension and short attention spans.

The internet has made an immense impact on every generation since its existence as it continues to grow throughout time. Its effectiveness is prodigious; the internet allows people to gain information that once took days to retrieve it in a few minutes (Carr 1). Writer Nicholas Carr, in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, explains that the use of internet and technology causes harm to people and their brains. Carr’s purpose is to address to internet users that Google (or any electronic helpers) is making them “stupid” and lazy because it minimizes their concentration and willingness to think. He attempts to adapt to his audience, dedicated internet users, as he uses the rhetorical appeals to try to convince them of his purpose. However, this was not enough. Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” is ineffective because of his poor use of ethos and logos despite his good use of pathos.

In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, the main argument the author, Nicholas Carr is trying to make is to explain how the Internet becomes our only source of information. Carr is also trying to warn oncoming generations in how the Internet has affected our ability to read long pieces or to be able to retain information for a long period of time. Carr provides personal experience, imagery, and a professional analysis that is backed by research to hook the audience in and persuade them that in today’s society, the Internet is only causing problems rather than any solutions.Throughout the article Carr provides an abundant amount of rhetorical modes by giving examples and studies from different organizations . Carr gives an insight on the positive ways the Internet had influenced his life.

With the rise of technology and the staggering availability of information, the digital age has come about in full force, and will only grow from here. Any individual with an internet connection has a vast amount of knowledge at his fingertips. As long as one is online, he is mere clicks away from Wikipedia or Google, which allows him to find what he needs to know. Despite this, Nicholas Carr questions whether Google has a positive impact on the way people take in information. In his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr explores the internet’s impact on the way people read. He argues that the availability of so much information has diminished the ability to concentrate on reading, referencing stories of literary types who no longer