The Professor Of Business And Psychology Tomas Chamorro Premuzic

In the passionate article, “Digital addictions mean we can't read books anymore. And that's a problem” by the opinionated Jim Sollisch, the author convincingly argues digital distractions seem to take over our world and the simple pleasures like reading are forgotten and that is a severe problem with broad repercussions. Sollisch effectively and competently builds the argument by using a variety of persuasive and argumentative rhetorical techniques including but not limited to facts and studies, tone, and the use of a personal anecdote.

Advances in technology has altered the world as we know it, and it can only progress farther. Through the minds of many intelligent and devoted individuals across time technology has developed into a twenty first century deity. A young child one hundred years ago could never envision a world like ours today, ruled by ones and zeros. The media has affected us in ways that we can’t even comprehend and will continue to steadily provide humans with a faster and faster flow of information for years to come. But what is the cost to have all of the information you can imagine at your fingertips? The exponential increase in information that we process in all forms of media is affecting the way that we live by making society more alienated.

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

Students may easily lose their attention and concentration with easy access to such incredibly rich store of information. With such new technologies as television, internet and social networks, people nowadays tend to multitask more often as they have easy access to large amount of information. However, such easy access may sometimes be a distraction. Study report “Your Brain on Computers” shows that heavy multitaskers perform up to 20% worse on most tests compared to performance of light multitaskers. Working efficiency of people, who multitask, are claimed to be significantly lower. The same is with concentration. As a result, they are not engaged in working process. Students tend to be easily distracted with this situation. For example, combining doing homework with operating on Twitter, phone or YouTube results in poor engagement of a student into deep thinking process, according to Winifred Gallagher, who is the author of Rapt. He also points out that nowadays high school and college students have decreased capacity of serious thinking because of multitasking and distraction. Moreover, Tyler Cowen, economist and famous blogger, claims that nowadays information tends to come in shorter and smaller portions and that explains why our generation encourages short reading. Since online information is always presented in short written passages, the web prevents user from concentration and contemplation. As an illustration, Nicholas Carr, the speaker at MIT and Harvard,

In his writing, Carr explains how his mind has become much more erratic since his use of the internet. “I get fidgety, lose the thread, [and] begin looking for something else to do,” Carr says (572). The availability of information that people have these days is astonishing, and their intake of it is even more considerable. In connection to the information people have access to in our day and age, it has promoted a culture of disinterest and boredom. You are able to see this clearly in a study of online research habits, conducted by scholars from University College London. The subjects displayed “a form of skimming activity,” jumping from source to source. They normally would read no more than one or two pages of a book or article before they would go to another site, seldom returning to any source they had already viewed.

Although its intention was to nourish our minds with an instant unlimited source of valuable information, the internet has caused some people to lose their appreciation for long texts and their ability to concentrate. Within the essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, the author feels that someone has been tinkering with his brain and that he can no longer enjoy reading a book of any length because he cannot sustain concentration on the book (Carr 1). This is a result of the fact that when people use the internet to find information, they habituate themselves to skim along the lines to quickly allocate their answers and once they have gotten what they needed, they close the browser without any further analysis of the information.

The internet has made an immense impact on every generation since its existence as it continues to grow throughout time. Its effectiveness is prodigious; the internet allows people to gain information that once took days to retrieve it in a few minutes (Carr 1). Writer Nicholas Carr, in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, explains that the use of internet and technology causes harm to people and their brains. Carr’s purpose is to address to internet users that Google (or any electronic helpers) is making them “stupid” and lazy because it minimizes their concentration and willingness to think. He attempts to adapt to his audience, dedicated internet users, as he uses the rhetorical appeals to try to convince them of his purpose. However, this was not enough. Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” is ineffective because of his poor use of ethos and logos despite his good use of pathos.

Nicholas Carr argues in his text, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that the Internet is changing the way people work and reflect for the worst. Carr’s argument is ineffective because while the Internet might be shifting people, it could be for the better. Nicholas Carr argues that the instant access to information through Google provides has caused the loss of the ability to read long articles and as well be able to hold our attention with out just skimming through the text. While Carr attempts to persuade his audience through his rhetorical aim and as well as the usage of ethos, pathos and logos to convince his audience with a rational dispute, his argument is to direct and the audience he is speaking to

“Is Google Making Us Stupid” by Nicolas Carr, argues that using the internet to read is less thought inciting then reading books. Carr has focused on the various claims that support the argument above. The writer claims that the Internet causes lack of concentration as it is full of ads, hyperlinks, and other media which is meant to distract us. This he gives the example of someone reading the latest headlines in a newspaper site when suddenly a new e-mail messages announces its arrival with a tone of some sort. He says that the “The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration.” The next claim he makes is that the way we read on the Internet is changing how we use our brains to think; therefore making us less contemplative. Carr mentions Maryanne Wolf who works as a developmental psychologist at Tufts University. Wolf believes that when we read online we become “mere decoders of information”. I believe that Carr uses this example to give the illusion that when we read online we don’t truly gain knowledge but instead we just gather more information.

In The Shallows Carr includes a tale of Phillip Davis, a doctoral student, introducing his friend to the internet and becoming frustrated when his friend kept pausing to read web pages she found. Davis recounts, “ ‘You’re not supposed to read web pages, just click on the hypertexted words!’ ”(Carr 7). This statement may seem brash but it is not wrong, the Internet is not the ideal environment for individuals who want to pause and assess ever bit of information given, if that were the case one would turn on his or her computer to write an email and within three hours have gotten nowhere. From all the pop ups, side ads, and recommendations along a web page taking the time to evaluate each and every bit of information would take ages, and this discourages a mentality of linear reading and full analysis. Moreover, Carr describes how an Israeli company allows users to view the amount of time people spent on their website from around the world, the result showed that now matter were they were located they all spent a minimal amount on each website before clicking away. Carr states, “ On the Web, there is no such think as leisurely browsing. We gather as much information as quickly as our eyes and fingers can move”(Carr

Carr writes articles and books on technology, business, and culture, and has written for the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He is a well established writer and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2011. Carr wrote this article because he found himself having a hard time focusing on any type of deep reading, something that he feels is very important to having a well rounded mind. He emphasizes that because the internet is structured to be a massive amount of information read one small piece at a time, our minds are starting to reflect that. He is writing for an intellectual audience who are probably for the most part highly educated. His audience would be those who can see the importance of the way that we consume information, and how our brains use that information. His writing in this article does a very good job of reaching that audience thanks to his obvious knowledge on the subject, and how he relates to his

Consumerism in our lives has become unavoidable; the constant stream of information, that we utilize whenever we search the web or pick up our cell phone, has a direct affect on the way we live our lives. We must do all we can to prevent ourselves from being overwhelmed by the currents of this technological age; to do this, we have to remain aware of the truth and origin of information. Oppose the urge to become controlled by social irrelevancies, resist the Feed!

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

Nowadays, there are thousands of books available free on the Internet, and people find them easy to read the book online instead of getting the hard copy of the book. In his book The Shallows, Nicholas Carr explains that the online readings make it becomes difficult for us to pay full attention to the reading “The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing”(7). For example, when I have to read the articles from the Internet for my research papers or class assignments, I always have hard time focus on the reading because I easily get distracted by the ads shown on the pages. I start paying attention to the ads instead of understanding and absorb the information. Carr also states that “For some people, the very idea of reading a book has come to seem old-fashioned, maybe even little silly- like sewing your own shirts or butchering your own meat”(8). In these days, people find it boring to read books, especially young adults, they think it is a waste of time to read books when they can get the short versions of reading from the Internet instead of reading a page to

The worth of media is a very controversial topic. Media has given us the ability to do things in new and creative ways such as how we learn and accomplish our everyday tasks. However, we do not always know how to interpurate this information. The technology available today is constantly impacting and influencing society in tremendous ways. Many of the impacts that are accocated with media are addressed in negative ways, but can be seen from a positive perspective as well. In the current generation, media and its influences can be found everywhere. These influences widely impact today’s adolescents and maturing teenagers because they are still developing into adults. Medias purpose is not only to inform us, but to allow us to mold ourselves in how we want to be perceived online. Also, it allows us easy access to unbelievable amounts of information. Living in an era known as the “information age” is riveting, but what are we suppose to do with all of this new technology and information?