Effects of Google on the Mind: Is it Helping Us or Hurting Us?
In a society where computers are used on a daily basis, is there a chance that Google is affecting our minds in a negative way? Nicholas Carr, who has written many articles on technology, business, and culture, argues that the use of Google is steadily making us less intelligent. Although, in most aspects most people may agree with what Carr is saying, but where is the experimental evidence that shows if Google is actually making us stupid? The argument that Carr presents in "Is Google Making Us Stupid" is difficult to fully side with considering he fails to present actual evidence, while relying only on his assumptions from his own experiences, and the viewpoints of other writers.
Carr's evidence in the article states that "they found that people using the sites exhibited 'a form of skimming activity,' hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to a source they had already visited" which he gathered from a study that was performed by University College London (738). Although, this is reliable evidence since it was a study that the University College London preformed, throughout the rest of the article where are the other studies that show the effects of Google and reading online? Even though some may agree with some of the
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On what evidence is he basing this claim? And where are the statistics showing us the number of people that are experiencing these phenomena? Unfortunately, he explains that we are still awaiting the long-term neurological and psychological experiments that will provide a definite picture of how the internet affects us, which makes it tough to believe his assumptions (Carr 737). This statement raises the questions; is every person using a computer experiencing these phenomena or is it just the people that are using it an unhealthy
In Nicholas Carr's story "Is Google Making Us Stupid" his fundamental point is the issue, is fast access to the web making people more restless to peruse and need to skim through stuff more. This story is an extremely well useful story. Carr uses google as a similitude for the more extensive web. At the point when Carr poses the question is google making us inept, he may have set an alert for some. In the story he gets profound clarification of how the web impacts the cerebrum. The clarification he gives us is the way PCs have modified the way we work, how we sort out data, offer news, convey, and how we hunt down, read, and assimilate data. Carr's investigation joins research, and additionally reasoning, science, history, and social advancements.
In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains”, Nicholas Carr points out the fact that google is affecting our brains. He explains how being able to access information more quickly is minimizing the amount of thinking we have to do on our own and therefore preventing our brain to do deep thinking. On the second paragraph the author says, “I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it more strongly when I’m reading”. I strongly agree with the author’s point because when I used to live in the Dominican Republic I didn’t have access to google and had to go to the library and check out books to do my homework assignments. I wasn’t intimidated by the length of the reading and was able to find the
In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid” by Nicholas Carr the thesis of the article is internet technology is altering our thought process. His article was featured in the Atlantic in 2008. In the article, Nicholas Carr says that he is not thinking the same and he cannot read like he used to. Now he loses concentration after reading two or three pages. He thinks this is happening because he has been spending a lot of time online. People can find things easily with Google so they do not have to look for it as much. Before people had to go to libraries to search for information but now they can just look for it online. His friends and acquaintances also said they are having similar problems. He says the longer people use the Web the harder it is for them to concentrate.
Carr had experiences of his own working with the web. He researched other writers with similar views on the subject to support his own thesis. Using evidence from different reputable sources helps draw in the reader and shows them the widespread effects of the web. Carr states that one of the articles he gained information from said, “It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense”(94). The way we read now is considered as "skimming through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins”. Usually when people read on the Internet, they do not spend the time to read the entire article, and it is seen that people skip from text to text, focus getting lost quickly.
Nicholas Carr argues in his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that the internet is changing the way we think and work for the worst by reducing our ability to concentrate on books, and long articles. Google is reshaping our brain, we have become accustom to skimming through headline and jumping from one article to the next without completing the first. The internet is altering our learning by giving us access multiple distraction such as emails, social media, and advertisements all these factors contributing to our lack of concentration when attempting to absorb information.
Carr mentions his personal experience with technology and how it has affected him. He points out his “concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages” (961). Carr isn’t the only one who has been affected by technology; he tells us that even his “acquaintances” have had similar experiences. His acquaintances say, “The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing” (962). What once used to come natural to us has become difficult. People used to rely on books for multiple reasons when it came to research but now that technology has been used more frequently books are not that common. Carr says “Research that once required days . . . can be done in minutes” (962). Carr is mentioning the benefits of the Internet, for his argument he is using both sides so that the reader can relate to his article and understand where he is coming from. Carr quotes Marshall McLuhan when he points out that “the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation” (962). Although fast research is great and easy to access it has its flaws. Carr mentions that
The article published by The Atlantic, titled Is Google Making Us Stupid? causes the reader to contemplate the effect that the internet really has on us. Technology is used daily by the grand majority of people, and we jumped into this lifestyle without researching the effects it would have on us. Until recently people have not thought twice about this, but now we mutiple people, including scientists, questioning the effects on the brain. One of the hypothesized problems caused by the internet are the inability to retain information. The reasoning behind this thought is we try to be quick about our reading, we do not like being inefficient, what we do is we skim. The writer found this to be true for himself as well as a couple of his friends
According to the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, the Internet is beginning to change how people’s brains work. He states that reading articles online can remap how the brain functions. It has become harder for people to read a lengthier article due the brain’s capacity of obtaining the information. Minds begin to drift away after reading only a couple of pages and some people would not even bother to read a long article. The reasoning for all of this is that the media, including the Internet, is giving them all the answers that they need. Due to this, people are relying more on the Internet to obtain their information instead of their intelligence. Nickolas Carr argues in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that the ability to focus and understand is being reduced by the Internet.
Being able to instantly gather information is easier than it has ever been before. People can go on the internet, press a few buttons and are given an endless amount of information. Do not anything about the topic, just Google it and it will provide the information that is needed. It has come to the point where people rely on the internet daily. However, there are downsides to having technology surrounding society most of the time. In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid? ” from the July/August 2008 edition of The Atlantic, Nicholas Carr, a writer and former member of Britannica’s Encyclopedia editorial board of advisors, expresses how technology is negatively changing how we think and act because of the influences people get from the technology
Nicholas Carr, posed the question, “Is Google making us stupid”, and asks his readers to give it some thought. The article made suggestions such as the internet changing the way the mind works and that the internet has negative consequences on the human brain. Carr wants everyone to be cautious of the internet because of the many different ways it has affected and will continue to affect the way we think. When I think about this article, I can see the many different tactics Carr used, such as fact vs fiction, cause and effect, and the clearly stated argument.
The uses of technology like computers and cell phones are growing every day with new uses and forms. There are mixed feelings about if technology is making us smarter or stupider thru out day to day life. Nicolas Carr a New York Times writer wrote an article about “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and he tries to show people that computers are making our lives simpler and there for making us as humans stupid. Another writher that goes by the name Greg is a writer for digitaltonto.com, and he found the previous article and wrote “How Computers Change the Way We learn” which is about how all lot of the facts in Carr article could have been read to say anything that the author wanted, so he could make people believe.
“The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing.”(Carr, 315). This quote from “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” gives us an idea on how the internet really changes our habits. Our minds go from being able to concentrate and thinking through problems to relying on google to find a simple solution. We may even count this as lazy as Squarciafico worried that technology would lead to intellectual laziness (Carr, 326). I agree with Squarcifico. Even Carr stated, “…there’s a countertendency to expect
Andrew Brown once said, “The Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.” However is that truly the case with today’s technology, is the internet pointless. It is possible however the internet offers education and learning opportunities but again does the good outweigh the bad. Well that is a matter of prospective. In Nickolas Carr prospective it does not, this can be based off of reading “Is Google Making Us Stupid” by him. In the article he shows proof of his beliefs and ideals within his main statements. An example of one is when he talks about his focus issues, and how he can no longer be completely immersed in a book because he starts to fidgety while reading. He then talks
According to Carr’s reasoning, it is the Internet that changes our brains and makes us be disturbed easily (591). However, in Dean Burnett’s article “Is the internet killing our brains?” which defends for the Internet, Burnett reviews a research which shows the human brain is a “two-layer, bottom-up and top-down attention system”: one layer of the system “enable us to direct our attention” and another layer enable us to realize other significant things happening around (Burnett). This implies the distraction is a part of human nature due to the operating mechanism of our brains. This is to say, because of the existence of the second layer, people can be distracted even without the Internet. Thus, there is no sufficient evidence to show that the Internet should not take all the responsibility for people’s concentration loss. Although the Internet does distract people’s attention, it is just one of millions of triggers for the
Carr’s entire argument is how the internet is making the population weak minded, which is easily clearly arguable with the resources available to us now. Some examples of resources are online school, library databases, educational games, daily newspapers, and even books are now sold online and school is being provided online to be more accessible to us. The hyperlinks that Carr mentions in his article as we “power browse” (1), in fact the internet/google is more helpful in going further into a subject being studied. For instance if someone is trying to research a sickness, the search starts with google, entering the sickness which leads them to an article, possibly Wikipedia, then a hyperlink is introduced to a subject they aren’t educated on, one would read further to gain more helpful