The Shallows Rhetorical Analysis Essay examples

Nicholas Carr, the author of The Shallows, wrote his book to convince further society that the internet is having an adverse effect on their brains and how they are receiving information. His major thesis for the novel was expressed when he exclaimed, "...the Internet controls what we think and the process in which we think because with its efficiency and speed, we are formulating all of our thoughts through the speed of the internet rather than through the speed of our mind." Throughout the novel, Carr discusses multiple reasons on how we have changed to depend on the internet. As well as how we have let go of older versions of technology and methods of learning because they seem insufficient compared to the internet. Carr was very biased

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.

As Carr continues, he speaks of his extended use of the internet over the last decade, explaining that all information that he once painstakingly searched for is done in minutes with the use of search engines. In doing this, Carr places blame on the internet for breaking his ability to concentrate. Carr presents his arguments in a way that his readers could easily agree. He gradually works up to the idea that the internet has weakened his ability to focus, and as he does this he makes several general statements about the internet’s nature. These points on the net’s nature are so basic that any reader of his article would be inclined to agree with them, and this lends itself to help readers believe the argument Carr wishes to propose. Because it would be hard to provide factual evidence to support his claims, Carr effectively uses logical reasoning to convince the reader.

The Internet is something that some consider their lifesavers, while others believe that it takes their life away. The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr is a novel that explores the different areas of how new technologies affect humans in different ways, regarding multi-tasking and distractions, to how new technologies make us lose a little part of ourselves. Throughout the book Carr puts forward very strong arguments, but then loses creditability with his use of fallacies in argument.

In South Central, Los Angeles, there is a food epidemic taking place among the population. For miles and miles, the only easily attainable food source is fast food; causing the overconsumption of un-nutritious, greasy, and fattening food. This is the problem brought to the public’s attention by speaker Ron Finley in his Ted Talks speech, “A Guerilla Gardener in South Central L.A.” Finley explains how everywhere he looks in his native South Central, all he sees are fast food chains and Dialysis clinics opened due to the lack of nutritious food. Finley views the lack of a healthy food source as a serious problem, and brings up

In the Shallows Nicholas Carr shown his side of the argument that technology is overpowering our minds. How he proves this fact is that whenever we learn something new on the computer it takes less than 2 days for the brain to reshape itself to adapt to the new learning environment. The brian has a plasticity to being able to mold itself into a new challenge to adapt to a new circumstance. We become dependent of the internet addicted to see what is new with our friends. Finally it shows that we can’t be offline for a certain time period or we will get withdraws like a drug. This shows how the internet and technology has affected us in a terrible manner.

A child’s teacher has taken the child’s parents aside to talk about concerns taking place in the classroom related to the child’s ability to pay attention in class. When hearing news such as this it can be devastating to a parent or caregiver. For this reason, among others, it is important to have a reliable and easily understood source for information. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is one such source available for information seekers that readily providers a source of truth. Their sites include informational webpages about important and impactful topics such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This site leverages information sharing using ETHOS, PATHOS, and

Abraham Lincoln’s “Second Inaugural Address” and Emily Dickinson’s “Success is Counted Sweet,” are two inspirational pieces of art that fall under two different types of discourses. The “Second Inaugural Address,” is a great example and definition of what Rhetoric is. It encompasses all four resources of languages- argument, appeal, arrangement, and artistic devices. “Success is Counted Sweet,” doesn’t cover the four resources of language that apply to rhetoric; therefore, it is categorized as a poem.

In Carr’s description of the Internet, he explains why it is affecting humans. He leaves the technology as a virus that absorbs our commands, injects information into us, and then scatters and spreads our concentration. However, before labeling the Internet as a human made pest that has gone wild, Carr makes one last appeal to ethos by stating possible benefits of this rapidly capable means of statement as well as his own faults of being a worrywart.

“How the Internet is making us stupid” is an article written by Nicholas Carr for a book called “ The Shallows”, the New York Time Bestseller. Nicholas Carr is an acclaimed writer on technology and culture. He wrote several books, articles, blogs, and essays for New Your Times, Wall Street journal, the New Republic, Wired, and Nature.

Carr’s premise is that the Web is interfering with our ability to focus on lengthy material. On the contrary, the internet is actually aiding our ability to focus on reading. This holds true for younger children, who are known as the digital natives in our generation. In a research conducted by The National Center for Education shows that “by altering the mode of reading material from traditional paper-based reading to online reading,” the interest of elementary school children increased (Wright 367). Because children of the 21st century are surrounded by technology, they are more likely to gear towards digital media for their mode of learning. Contrary to Carr’s view that the internet “is chipping away [the] capacity for concentration and contemplation,” these children are more likely to read and focus as a result of

Innovations have affected people in several aspects from their thoughts and actions to their interest. Technology has been beneficial for society by making every day human task easier and making things like communication and transportation more efficient and convenient. However, technology can also be detrimental when it surpasses boundaries that should not be broken .In the novel, technology continues to play a key role in American society both negatively and positively. In 2030, there’s a market for artificial people with various purposes. “The fake business in general has become huge: fake protection, fake friends, friend life, and fake love. It was getting so good that the word “virtual” was virtually dropped. If someone said he was going to Tahiti for a week, the first question was usually, “The real one?”(Brooks 5) The fake people were used to make a house look like it was occupied to deter burglars. The market also included fake children “…who were as real as pets. They didn’t grow; you could buy them at age five and they would stay that way” (Brooks 6). There is a con that comes with every technology that is introduced in America. Humans are becoming dependent on technology, they look to solve problem by retrieving information instead of relying on knowledge they already have. Today’s society is becoming dependent on the knowledge needed to find information instead of the knowledge acquired by previously finding information. Brooks discusses the negative impacts of the manufactured

Nicholas Carr published The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains in 2011 as a result of his own personal experiences and observations of his own behavior. The book was published by W.W. Norton & Company with ISBN 978-0-393-33975-8. Carr began working on the book after he noticed that since the birth of the internet, he did not think in the same ways that he used to think; he was easily distracted and had trouble concentrating on tasks requiring a lot of thought (2011). This effect, he noticed, was not unique to him. Many of his colleagues reported that they too had lost a lot of interest in reading books, had trouble concentrating and were easily distracted (Carr, 2011). What if, Carr wondered, everyone doesn’t just prefer to do their reading on the internet for its inherent convenience and speed but rather, what if the internet was actually changing the way we all think?

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

Michael had grown to be an old man, a man of distinction, character and knowledge…features that were more subtlety displayed to the world than his full head of silver hair. It had come to the point in life that he felt he needed to pass on the ageless “when I was your age” speech to his grandchildren. He decided to center this speech on the progressive transformation of the internet, what life was like and how it had changed. He felt it was important for them to know what life was like when business to business and business to customer interaction was predominantly limited to forms of over the phone, face to face, and through the postal mail. A time where pizza had to be ordered by the telephone, and when Dominos promised delivery of 30 minutes or less or your pizza was free or else the NOID would have his way.