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Is Google Making USupid? By Nicholas Carr

Decent Essays

In Nicholas Carr's piece "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", Carr questions the quality of intelligence in today's society. Carr argues that having access to virtually everything at the touch of a button is weakening our ability to concentrate on long pieces of writing. He recognizes that getting the "gist" of the information he is searching for in a headline and maybe a paragraph is decreasing his ability to absorb longer pieces of writing (314-315). He adds to this point by discussing the fact that internet browsers deliberately attempt to distract readers. When reading an article online, Carr points out that there is little chance that the article you are reading is the only thing on your screen. He notes that within the article there …show more content…

There is very little in life that can be accomplished now without the use of technology and the internet, and people do not always want to do the things that do not require the technology. The most brazen example of this was in Gladstone's piece "The Influencing Machine", in which she depicts herself injecting herself with data from an iPhone in the same way one would with heroin (Gladstone 335). This depiction is a very large conclusion to jump to. Gladstone using your iPhone all the time to a highly addictive, deadly drug. When I first read through Gladstone's piece, I did not even notice this extreme graphic. I merely tried to focus on the points she was trying to make. However when I noticed it the second time around it came as a real shock. Even now when reading a third and fourth time it still surprises me to see an image like that. It is such a strong comparison to make; it is something that really resonates with you. I think it was extremely clever for Gladstone to make this depiction in order to get her point across because it is something that a reader cannot ignore when looking at the whole picture. Nicholas Carr makes a similar point when discussing the two men who founded Google. He notes that the two "speak frequently of their desire to turn their search engine into an artificial intelligence, a HAL-like machine that might be connected …show more content…

When new technology is released into society, we need to learn how to use the new products and how to adjust our lives around those products. This adjustment is both something we physically have to change in our lives and also something our brains need to adapt to. While these changes can be fairly easy, older people may struggle. Gladstone sheds light on this idea at the very end of the excerpt when she quotes author Douglas Adams when he makes the point that "Anything that's invented between when you're 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary. Anything invented after you're 35 is against the natural order of things" (Gladstone 338). I mostly agree with both Adams and Gladstone with this point. It makes sense that once you are settled into your adult life that you do not want things to keep changing and evolving. Your brain has adjusted who knows how many times between those glory ages of 15 and 35, and now you are settled and do not want to accept anything new. However, new things will keep coming and your brain and your routine will still have to adjust. Nicholas Carr for example is currently 59 years old and was 49 when he wrote the piece "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". Along with this, Brooke Gladstone is currently 63 and was 56 when she wrote "The Influencing Machines". This aligns perfectly with Adams point

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