Summary Of Persuasion By Nicholas Carr

Each and everyday around the world there are new advances in technology attempting to make life more simple. In the article by Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, Carr explains his beliefs on how the internet is causing mental issues in today's society. Carr starts with his own opinion, he says the Internet is causing him to lose focus quickly. He cannot stay hooked to a book. He writes about his life being surrounded by the internet and how it has created problems, like not being able to stay focused on a reading; but it is interesting how he says the Internet has been a ‘godsend’ in his chosen profession. Carr uses a great deal of rhetorical appeals to try to connect with the audience. He compares the past and the present and how it has altered the

Nicholas Carr, the author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, writes his article ironically enough for all the interweb to see. In his article, he gives us examples in which the interweb has benefitted him but also changed his brain in a negative factor. He specifically notes in his article that the interweb has specifically changed his mind in the sense that he no longer has the in depth focus that he once had. The example that he gave was at one point in his life he was able to sit down and read his book for hours without being distracted while now he can’t even read more than a few pages without getting distracted. In the article, he has various tests recorded involving college students and their use of resources, a writer’s writing style before and after using a typewriter in the late eighteen hundreds, and lastly what the industrial revolution and specifically the printing press have done that has shaped our society.

Carr has a more negative opinion about new technology than Cascio. Carr believes the internet and previous technological advancements have caused many changes in society, including reducing people’s ability to focus. Carr says, “What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.” This is just one of the many times that he blames the internet for the changes that have occurred in the past decade.

There is no denying the incredible library of knowledge the internet has made readily available for all to use. Having such a resource is transforming modern society in many ways, as it brings insight and news across the world at a moment’s notice, all the while enhancing educational and technological advancements. However, according to Sven Birkets, an American essayist and literacy critic, in his essay, “The Owl Has Flown”, it is not without fault as observations are to be made on how this new resource has transformed people’s intelligence and wisdom. The author theorizes that the large, almost unlimited, library that is now being offered by services such as the internet, reshapes the public’s knowledge. Knowledge is transformed to be horizontal or insubstantial compared to the much deeper lateral understanding pertaining to older generations because of the amount of time they spent dwelling on a much smaller set of resources. This observation made by Birkets in the late 90’s is expanded upon, and modernized by Nicholas Carr, an American writer and author, in a more inflicting and self-reflecting article for The Atlantic magazine entitled “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains”. Carr does not just blame the Google search engine in this claim, but the internet as a whole on how it impacts concentration and our ability to contemplate. These cognitive impacts are observed and explained in more scientific terms by Eric Jaffe, a regular Observer

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

Carr describes how he thinks that the internet is making him lose his focus, he can't read for longer times, makes him uneasy and starting to look for a distraction while reading. Carr explains in depth in the article that how the internet is taking over our lives, we found

This argument becomes more valid when he references some of his co-workers and reinforces his argument. One of the best examples of cause and effect is when Carr introduces the idea of the clock. Carr states,” the clock disassociated time from human events and helped create the belief in an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences” (612). This concept definitely supports the cause and effect by suggesting that the clock completely affected the way our minds run. Carr’s concerned tone also helps add to the article. His concerned tone shows when analyzing examples, and how he seems nervous about what he future holds, like when Carr says ,” The internet, an immeasurably powerful computing system, is submerging most of our other intellectual technologies” (613). He uses strong language to show that the internet really is a threat to us, and how we should be aware of how the internet is molding us. Carr also suggests that we should be skeptical of his skepticism, but he brings up interesting points of view. There are good and bad effects to the internet, and Carr did a great job of getting his point across to us. He used fact vs fiction, cause and effect and much more leaving us with a lot to think about. He stirs up many thoughts, like maybe we shouldn’t be concerned with Google making us stupid, but how technology is shaping

The author 's tone changes in paragraph 4 when Carr talks about how the Internet has altered his mind by crumbling away at how much he can concrete. When Carr states “For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium” in paragraph four the author provides his counter argument which is to warn the incoming generations the dangers of the Internet before his main argument. Which is that the Internet is making us stupid and is altering how we think, by doing this it allows Carr to spend the rest of the article refuting his main argument.

Are we to busy searching the web to realize how dumb we are becoming? We live in the age of technology, where there is easy access to the Internet. Nicholas Carr, the author of “Does the Internet Make you Dumber?” stated a good question that is relevant to our generation. Since we have easy access to the Internet, it is making us dumber instead of smarter. I believe individuals have taken advantage of the Internet and it is costing them their thinking skills. Sometimes individual don’t realize the impact that the internet has on our brain and education. The author states that the internet comes with distractions, many information, and it models our brains.

Is the internet making us smarter or dumber? People continuously argue whether this rise of electronic use and internet in our lives is a negative or positive aspect. In June 5, 2010 Wall Street Journal article, Nicholas Carr raises and answer the intriguing question,“Does the Internet Make You Dumber?”Nicholas Carr argues that the internet has bad effects on our brain. He says that the internet makes it harder to remember anything, and that is harder to move memories into long term memory. Those who are continually distracted by emails, alerts, and text messages understand less than a person who can concentrate. Nicholas Carr points that the internet can change the way our brain acts. He states that those who use the internet are shallow, and the internet is causing irreversible damage to our thought processes and making us stupid. A week later, Steven Pinker counters Nicholas Carr’s assertions in his own New York Time article,“Mind Over Mass Media.”He argues that electronic technologies are not as horrible as some may make it seem, and he starts his article by addressing how“New forms of media have always caused moral panics”(199). Throughout his article, Pinker explains why critics, who accuse electronic technology as harming to human intelligence, are wrong. He suggests that,“these technologies are the only things that will keep us smart”(200). Through media and social networking, the internet brings people closer together and provides convenience for people’s life.

Carr discusses the effects that the Internet has on our minds and the way we think, as well as the way media has changed. Our minds no longer focus. When in conversation with people we are constantly distracted by the technological advances our era has brought. Text messages, emails, pop culture drama has all taken

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

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.

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