The Shallows By Nicholas Carr Summary

Immediately after we are born, we start picking up sounds; the sound of our mother’s voice, the music playing in the elevator on the way to the car, and the happy cheers from a small child seeing their new sibling for the first time. We are always listening–picking up on conversations not meant for our ears, eavesdropping on the gossip of the adult world, and finding the meaning in the portentous silence. From all these auditory stimuli, we piece together the world around us to better understand what is happening to us, around us, and the secret happenings that were not for us to know. Great writers are the ones who listen and say nothing–who take it all in and save their classified information for a day when all the right words flow and form one epic story of the wondrous world we live in.

This quote represents the way that the author’s anti-utopian style further depicts the alienation between people and literature, as well as the isolation of people from other people, as a negative effect of the advancements of modern technology.

The National Museum of the United States Navy (NMUSN) hosted a lecture on the Navy in Vietnam, Nov. 10.

The study that the researchers done only focused on the understanding of online social influence processes and suggesting that social influence principles extend to the online contexts. The researchers stated, “Future research should continue to consider how delivering influence attempts via other online contexts, such as social networking sites, impact compliance with an influence attempt” (Guadango, Muscanell, Rice, and Roberts, 2013). The results that the researchers presented had limitations. One of the limitations was that whether the results generalized other forms of social influence is unknown. And the second limitation was that the participants were mostly female. For this study, I agree with the conclusion of this experiment because the researchers made a good experiment, but they had flaws in

David Foster Wallace, author of the essay “Authority and American Usage*,” praises and advocates for “good” writers who have a strong rhetorical ability, which he defines as “the persuasive use of language to influence the thoughts and actions of an audience” (Wallace 628). To have a strong rhetorical ability, an author needs to be aware of whom their audience is, in order to present their information in a way that will be influential on their audience. Wallace recognizes that an author who applies a strong rhetorical ability will be able to connect with the audience so that they respond “not just to [their] utterance but also to [them]” (Wallace 641). An author needs to take into consideration not just content, syntax and grammatical

Tyson depicts this message with the use of persuasion, as well as text structure, which allows his audience to clearly understand the message Tyson presents. Throughout the essay, Tyson describes the importance of technology through persuasion and how our

Journalist, Clive Thompson in his book, “Smarter Than You Think”, specifically in the chapter titled, “Public Thinking”, published on September 12, 2013, addresses the topic of technology and argues that because of the internet, we are doing more writing now than ever. Therefore technology is helping us think publicly in new and improved ways. He supports this claim by asserting that there is an improvement in our writing, which is happening because of the “audience effect”, he then goes on to say that anything we write changes the way we think, and finally he talks about how the internet builds connections, which is essential to the spread of new ideas. Thompson’s purpose is to inform readers about how the internet is a tool being used to advance our society in order to encourage more people to partake in online, public thinking. He adopts a contemplative tone for his audience, the readers of The New York Times, and others interested in the topic of technology. It is my intention in this paper to analyze the author’s subclaims and use of rhetorical strategies.

The general argument made by Nicholas Carr in his work, From the Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, is that phones and social media has taken over, and that’s about all our generation relies on in today’s world. More specifically, Nicholas Carr argues that the internet is distracting us from our day to day work, and human interaction. He writes, “I do most of my banking and a lot of my shopping online. I use my browser to pay my bills, schedule my appointments, book flights and hotel rooms, renew my driver’s license, send invitations and greeting cards” (Carr par. 3). In this passage, Nicholas Carr is suggesting how the internet is taking over more and more of his life, and how technology is changing his daily tasks, and how

Marshall McLuhen published Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man in 1964. This writing served as the basis of Carr's ideas. Technology, as it is today, is changing our brains. The Shallows explores the debate over the powers and perils of modern technology.

Over the past two weeks, I have been reading The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas G. Carr. In the book, the author discusses the various effects of the Internet not only on our minds both physically and mentally, but also how it affects our race's actions and behaviors. I have spent the past two weeks reading this book, and I finished reading 280 pages in 325 minutes. Like the previous book I read, I chose this book because the subject was something that I haven't really explored before in other books that I have read, and my goal is to try to read at least a book every two weeks, When reading this book, I sometimes found myself confused, for reading about the brain's structure and how it functions wasn't something

Rhetoric is a course in which students are taught the values of persuasion. And yet, behind this course is the utmost power to corrupt the world, changing it into a world of our own policies. This power, even though seldom discussed, has lead to many intriguing discoveries. One such discovery is how people are able to shape the world they live in simply by choosing the right words. Therefore those who would want the world to be a better place must protect this power. If in the wrong hands this power could cause serious damage. Several authors have striven to protect rhetoric and its power. Few agree on the matter of defining rhetoric, but they know that they must protect rhetoric from dark souls. A single definition of rhetoric must maintain a simplistic nature while incorporating every aspect of rhetoric. However, I argue that rhetoric is a means of persuading audiences of a situation and a particular reality through language and personal appeal. In order to prove this definition I will discuss how rhetoric creates a situation, the shaping of a different reality, the audience, the use of language, and the personal appeal. Finally, I will demonstrate the absolute need for rhetoric.

In this chapter Heinrichs discusses how a great rhetorician ought to decide the right medium, no longer just the proper time, to supply a positive message. (And certainly, most of the people do intuitively understand which media prefer which messages—as an instance, the majority understand that it’s a horrific concept to break up with someone over textual content). Heinrichs’ approach for evaluating exclusive styles of verbal exchange emphasizes the permanence, emotional characteristics, and immediacy of a medium. Some media allow the target audience to look the persuader’s appearance; others don’t. Some media transmit messages that remaining for all time; others don’t. With these styles of issues come critical choices about what content would play high-quality through every medium. As a result of their diverse bodily and temporal constraints, specific forms of communique favor one of kind varieties of messages. A message this is only heard once, for only a few seconds, might be much less emblems-centric than a message that stays for all time, and which requires a variety of time to study.

In Amy Goldwasser’s article “What’s the Matter with Kids Today?” she talks about how kids now of days don’t read, don’t write, and don’t care about anything besides their phones, tables, and other technologies. She is trying to explain why younger and older generations may not both be affected by internet and how it has actually helped one of these generations more than the other. This article argues if technology is affecting younger and older generations. One writer says “the internet has seduced a whole generation into its inanities”, but Amy Goldwasser thinks it’s helping the younger generation and affecting the older generation. She quotes in response to this writer “or is it the older generation that the internet has seduced into the inanities of leveling charges based on fear,

Literary Analysis of The Influencing Machines “The Influencing Machines” by Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld gives insight to the development of technology and its effect on the way people live their lives; Technology, as we know it today, is found ubiquitously in the forms of televisions, radios, computers, and smart phones. Centuries ago, books were once considered the newest technology of the time and their popularity caught on like wildfire. However, Gladstone has taken notice of some of the concerns that critics have expressed towards modern technologies such as the Internet. One of their fears consist of the Internet’s potential of bringing together like-minded individuals, which lead to the “the creation of virtually impermeable echo

The internet has been around for a few decades now and several people are accustomed to using it in their everyday lives. Recently however, an author named Nicholas Carr published a book arguing that the internet is not good for us, and our brains. He claims that the internet is making us into shallow individuals, hence the name of his book, The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains. After reading this book, I must agree with Carr’s argument that the internet is altering our mindsets.