Is Google Making Us Stupid Essay

Technology nowadays always use to have so much information at our fingertips, but is this a good thing? That is what Jamais Cascio’s “Get Smarter” and Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?” both discuss; they specifically address the effects that new technology, such as the internet, has on the way humans think. The difference is that Carr argues that this new technology is making us stupid while Cascio argues that it is making us smarter. Nicholas Carr’s article discusses the negative effects of the internet and technology like it. It specifically mentions slight changes in the way people do things because of the influence of technology and gives many historical and anecdotal examples. Jamais Cascio’s article is about the advancements of technology and how it is makes people smarter. Cascio talks about Twitter, mental enhancement drugs and AIs, focusing a lot on the benefits of the advancements.

Nicholas Carr in the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” argues that the more people use technology, the more it’s making people stupid. Throughout the article he mentions many examples where he proves himself correct. Google is making us stupid because it’s affecting our concentration the more we rely on technology.

Nicholas Carr is an American author who writes the majority of books and articles about the continuously evolving world of technology and how it is effecting our society. Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist and a New York Times bestseller. In this essay I will be rhetorically analyzing Carr’s essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid” published in 2008. The purpose of Carr’s essay was to bring light to an issue that many of us face but only a meniscal few have come to terms with; and that is that technology is mentally incapacitating our society and simultaneously making us lazy. This essay was intended for anyone was has been consumed in today’s culture by new technological advances to the extent of not being able to function without some sort of device, IE cellphone, laptop or tablet on a daily basis.

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.

Nicholas Carr’s Is Google Making Us Stupid? explains the impact the Internet is having on his (and others) patience with in depth reading habits, and possibly the way their brain is processing information. The old days of having to spend hours researching a subject are long gone because of the Internet. Having such a powerful tool available at any time can be a good and bad thing wrapped up in the same package. Over the last couple decades, home computer and smartphone ownership has been on a steady rise with most homes now having multiple devices. Therefore, having unlimited information available at all times has become a reality.

It is true that people are becoming more and more reliant on the internet to do everyday tasks. I feel that Carr addresses the issue perfectly in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid”. If we continue to use technology for everything, we will eventually lose all ability to deep read and make those critical connections that are necessary for true comprehension and application. He indicates that “the more [he] uses the web, the more he has to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing” (736). Knowing how difficult it was to read and analyze Carr’s article myself, I fully agree with his claims. Having grown up in a world that has always had technology, I must be hyper-cognizant of the task at hand when it comes to something such as reading, particularly if it is something that I deem less than interesting. When I was finally able to get through the entire essay, I started to think about how much I use the internet. I must admit that

Is Google numbing our minds? Carr claims that we are so heavily reliant on Google, that it is impeding our own mental thinking and capacity; he says that we need to rely less on Google and we need to start to rely more on our own thinking. As a result of Google, it has become the focal point of our thinking in today’s society. We no longer use our own knowledge and understanding to look up information, but rather we use Google to do our own dirty work according to Carr. Essentially, Google has numbed our minds by making us so lazy and reliant on it.

The debate over the internet's influence on human minds has been long running. Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" article successfully defends both opinions on this issue. He has plenty of history on the topic and has seen much success in previous works. Carr uses his past to impact the present issue society is challenged with every day. With his background on the subject, Carr is able to establish credibility as a speaker before he reasons for both sides of the debate successfully.

New technology around the world is being developed and improved every day to make people's life easier. In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Nicholas Carr explains his thoughts and beliefs on how he feels that the internet, especially google is making people rely more on the web to find information and making them full with artificial knowledge. The author begins his article by explaining personal side effects that he has experience due to the use of the web, like losing focus, not being able to deeply understand a book anymore, and the reasons why he gets distracted when reading. The author then talks furthermore about his life being surrounded by the internet and how it is to blame the web for the issue that he has experience; but then he explains how and why the internet has been “godsend” to him because of his profession as a writer. In order to draw

In his Is Google Making Us Stupid?, Nicholas Carr contends that the overload of information is “chipping away his capacity for concentration and contemplation”(315). He admits with easy accessibility of information online, the process of research has became much simpler(Carr 315). Yet such benefit comes with a cost. Our brains are “rewired” as the cost of such convenience(Carr 316). As the result, “we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s...but it’s a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking”(Carr 317). Carr argues the forming of such habits can prevent us from deep reading and thinking. In fact, he provides may evidences in the

Have you ever sat down and tried to read your textbook for your history class and five minutes later you realize you have no idea what you just read or you don’t remember a single word? I know I have and I have to go back an re-read it maybe once or twice. Nicholas Carr brought up a point that many of us have never really stopped to think about. In his piece, he claims that google has affected how we think and learn. He uses a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey to begin to get his point across. In this scene it talks about how the supercomputer felt like it’s brain was being taken as it’s memory circuits were being stripped.

Is Google Making Us Stupid? Have you ever imagined what life would be like without the use of Google? Do you believe the use of google hinders individuals? Many may argue that though Google brings about a variety of positive attributes, but in the end, google can negatively impact the world. Google is described as a popular search engine that allows people to research wild ranges of information.

What Google does is ease the life of students by granting them access to resources such as articles, books, websites, and other types of media, which saves their time and makes their busy lives more manageable (Wright 370). They get their information, and they get it fast. This extra time saved by using the Web provides students with the time to discover more information about a specific subject in order to deepen their knowledge. Furthermore, students are able to increase their intelligence when they obtain more information in a shorter period of time instead of spending hours in a book.

Nicholas Carrs article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” makes points that I agree with, although I find his sources to be questionable. The article discusses the effects that the Internet may be having on our ability to focus, the difference in knowledge that we now have, and our reliance on the Internet. The points that are made throughout Carrs article are very thought provoking but his sources make them seem invaluable.

In the July-August 2008 Atlantic magazine, Nicholas Carr published "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google). In this article Nicolas Carr argues that the internet is changing how one thinks, and how it is causing a bad effect on one’s brain. I have to disagree. Although the internet is constantly changing, it helps in a positive way. Firstly, google has become a great resource for educational purposes. Secondly, the internet has become a great resource for intercultural experiences. Due to the general population spending most of their time on computer’s and smart phones, this information is accessible to us whenever needed.