Nicholas Carr

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.

Carr concludes that we are constantly distracted online due to the many hyperlinks of advertisements and social media notifications, which impedes our brain to fully grasp the meaning behind the words. Maggie Jackson said, “The brain takes time to change goals, remember the rules needed for the new task, and block out cognitive interference from the previous still-vivid activity.” Due to the distractions of music, online shopping, and games our brains are more likely to misinterpret critical points. Many experiments Carr describes in his book show that people who read online documents will absorb less detail. All of these studies support Carr’s theory that the Internet only impairs our brain’s potential to interpret and explain the knowledge we come across in our daily

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

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

In the article “From The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing to Our Brains,” Nicholas Carr continually reiterates the argument that the Internet is altering how we think. “I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry” (Carr par. 2). Carr makes the point that he was always a voracious reader, but the fact that he uses the Internet so much for his job has changed the way he thinks and processes information. Over the course of the article he explains why this is the case. He uses the Internet not only for work, but for almost every other aspect of life including shopping, traveling, reading and numerous other activities.

He was even a lit major. He thinks that the way he thinks has changed. Another blogger named Bruce Friedman said that the Internet altered his thinking. He said he has almost lost the ability to read longer articles. Nicholas Carr says that even though we are reading more than we were in the 1970s and 1980s it is a different kind of reading and a different kind of thinking. James Old, a professor of neuroscience said that even in adulthood the brain can still reprogram its self to alter its functions. Nicholas Carr said that the Net is chipping away his concentration. His mind wants to take in information the way the Net distributes it. He said “Once I was a scuba diver in a sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet ski.” He is saying that he skims things instead of reading it

One of the most common clichés is that the Internet has robbed us of our attention spans and impeded our ability to communicate effectively. Once we could write properly, now we only text. Google has made us lazy in terms of how we research and access data. However, is this true? In three major news publications, three major essayists have grappled with this question and come to completely different conclusions. Although the neurological evidence in support of the 'Internet is stealing our brains' thesis is mixed, there is at minimum evidence that people 'feel' as though the Internet has changed their ability to express themselves and to synthesize information.

Nicholas Carr’s essay, Is Google Making Us Stoopid?, makes the assumption that technology is deterring are cognitive skills, specifically reading skills. The more we’re introduced to advanced technologies the lazier we become mentally. Carr goes even farther to suggest that he has been affected as well, “my mind isn’t going…but it’s changing…I’m not thinking the way I used to think.” (510)

Carr observes this in his own behavior, “And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation,” (Carr 20). As people change the way they learn from reading books to skimming online articles, their attention span for the former significantly shrinks, and they no longer find themselves able to sit through a book or even an essay. Also, similar behavior to what Carr experienced was documented in a British study, “They found that people using the sites exhibited ‘a form of skimming activity,’ hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they already visited,” (Carr 21). The internet promotes skimming opposed to actually reading and digesting articles, and because of this people are less and less interested in deep reads and deep thought. They are beginning to refuse any learning outside of the efficiency of the internet, even when better information may lie in a longer

In this article, Nicholas Carr attempts to explain how the way information is presented on the Internet has changed our way of thinking. He uses many different methods to do this, playing on the audience’s emotions as he uses anecdotes, research, and his own observations to try and convince the audience that the Internet has been detrimental to our thinking and learning processes. For the most part I believe his argument is ineffective because of his organization, his choice of sources, and his tone.

Google is slowing our brains down and making us depend on the machines we have around us. We do not need to take the time to think anymore because we have the devices around us to answer all our unanswered questions, right? Carr uses examples of figurative languages to make the reader understand the harm of google. He also uses argumentative technique to make the reader agree on his opinion of the internet by using facts and opinions of other articles. Last, he gives reasons on why he thinks google is slowing his and others brain and thinking skills down.

The first strategy Carr uses to claim that blogs and readings on the web are diminishing our cognitive abilities is the appeal to authority. As he explains his troubles with reading because of the web, he brings his fellow writer friends and shows that they are struggling with reading texts that are too long as well. He quotes Bruce Friedman, a pathologist from University of Michigan Medical School, “’I

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.

Nicholas Carr’s story about Google tells us about how we are on the site spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing too. He claims that the Web is a godsend, and it is the truth because when we are on the internet looking at Google it can help us find things. Bruce Friedman, who blogs all the time about the use of computers in medicine has described how being on the internet had changed his mental habits. He claims “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print.” Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University, says that when we read online we tend to become “Mere decoders of information.”

The internet is changing our brain for the worse. While we get to communicate with each other better and have a lot of information at our fingertips, we lose many important things as well. We are quick to congratulate the success of Google and Apple that we miss the real danger. Nicholas Carr shows us how we aren't seeing the real danger of the internet and he tells us what we are sacrificing for the internet. He explains to us how the internet is making us easily distracted, removes our ability to think linearly, and weakens our capability to learn.