A Mind of its Own Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows” is his more elaborate version of his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Both displaying his claim of how profoundly the human brain can be influenced, not only by the Internet, but technology as a whole. “The Web provides a convenient and compelling supplement to personal memory - but when we start using the Web as a substitute for personal memory, by bypassing the inner processes of consolidation, we risk emptying our minds of their riches.” (192) A variety of rhetorical choices and appeals are skills Carr uses to build an informative, mind-opening glance at the Internets affect on the mind. Carr begins his essay with personal identification by describing his experience and affects …show more content…
Carr uses this period in time to positively show how the Internet has impacted people’s lives by providing statistics which also strengthens his ethos. “By 2009, adults in North America were spending an average of twelve hours online a week, double the average in 2005.” (86) Thus Carr may or may not have started writing his book in 2007 due to technology related statistics emerging. Which in the same year, Apple Inc. CEO, Steve Jobs announced the iPhone and Google released Android. As technology advanced society became more and more associated with and furthermore influenced by it. With this occasion, it provides Carr with a very large and wide variety of an audience. Nearly everyone is coming in contact with the Internet and Carr informs the public of the issues at its …show more content…
To show this appeal Carr uses a vast amount of statistics and states his credentials to generate this appeal. By doing so this strengthens his credibility and concern from readers to notice the problem. Because of his concern of the brain changing, he provides a limitless chunk of science incorporating the brain altering including examples such as biology, psychology, and heavily on neurology. “That doesn’t mean that we can’t, with concerted effort, once again redirect our neural signals and rebuild the skills we’ve lost.” (35) Although Carr is concerned of this problem, he is showing that he is optimistic that everyone can overcome technology controlling their brains. As earlier stated, over the years people have become intact with technology thus society adapted to technology in their lives, making their lives easier. “Our use of the Net will only grow, and its impact on us will only strengthen, as it becomes even more present in our lives.” (92) The
In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicolas Carr analyzes the dramatic affects that technologies have been having on our brains. The short summary, the Net is making us all mindless zombies in Carr’s mind, but he is not the only who feels that way. His long dragged out article is abundantly full of meaning examples, personal opinions, and hard facts on the drastic changes the Net has done to our brains. Carr starts his articles with the death of super computer, HAL, from the movie A Space Odyssey.
He attempts to show us in his essay how our minds have changed due to the use of the Internet. Summary Nicholas Carr examines in an essay how digital technology affects our intelligence. Nicholas was educated at Dartmouth and Harvard and is a member of Encyclopedia Britannica’s editorial board of advisors. He has written a book name “The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from
All of these components add up to greatly increase the pathos present in Carr's essay. He ties this reference to the current state of the human population by claiming that we, too, are losing our minds. This puts the reader in the shoes of the computer, and it is a jarring realization. Furthermore, Carr uses a testimony from Bruce Friedman, a blogger who focuses on the use of computers in medicine. Friedman admits that "[he] can't read 'War and Peace' anymore...
Add to this, Carr continued his essay by questioning if this was only happening to him or if there were others going through the same issue as him “I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances- literary types, most of them- many say they’re having similar experiences (315). He
Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid” was published when the internet was still taking hold in a person’s everyday life. Throughout this article, he talks about how the internet is making our brains lazy because we do not have to go in depth to find what we are looking for. Ever since he started to use the internet, Carr thinks that the of the internet has made it so that he can no longer focus on a long article or research a topic. In this article Carr uses many examples of logos, ethos, and pathos to effectively convey his argument in a way that will convince the reader to believe his arguments.
Nicholas Carr whom wrote “Is Google Making Us Stupid” explains the negative consequences of the increasing presence of the internet in society’s everyday lives, and his predictions of their future. He explains how the internet is so embedded in their everyday lives that it is hard for society to imagine what life would be like without it. I agree with some of his points, such as how the internet has changed the way society reads which is consequently changing the way they think. Society may read more in this day in age than ever before, but it is a different type of reading, the majority of the reading consists of quickly scanning short articles on the internet while often simultaneously juggling different tasks.
In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Nicholas Carr is saying that when the internet becomes our primary source of information, it negatively affects our reading ability and our attention span. Using Google and the internet dulls our brain’s experience in the learning process and makes it hard to focus on reading. Carr gives a researched account on how using the internet is supposed to be fast and rewarding to the user. He explains that we go on the internet because it is easier and less time consuming than using something like a book or a magazine. Carr exclaims that we now use the internet as our main source for information.
In the world of today, the Internet is everywhere. It helps us collect information and stay connected. But is it worth it? Nicholas Carr shares his thoughts in his book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. He believes that people are becoming more shallow minded individuals with the use of the Internet.
They state that because of the convenience of the internet they simply prefer doing so by that form of media, as they do so they become further implemented in the “phenomenon” that the internet is causing as Carr calls it. The clock, like computers today, has changed the way we approach day to day life as we became more dependent on it to tell us what to do and when to do it from the day it was introduced. The internet has become the largest source of information, through it the possibilities of information far surpass what a library could supply, though Carr believes that with it comes the negative aspect of the internet, as it surrounds such information with all the possible content that drags the reader’s trail of
Being very detailed on pen and paper switching to the typewriter made his writing very straight to the point. Carr relates this to how the internet is changing our style. Before the internet, people would have to spend hours studying and reading things deeply to understand it. People now use the internet as their tool because it requires less work.
Carr expresses that his mind and how he thinks changed due to the new phenomenon “the Internet.” He proves his point by explaining that the internet has reprogrammed our minds to want everything quick and complete. To me, this was effective because once the reader thinks about it, they start realizing how accurate this actually is. By successfully, including pathos he interacts with the any type of audience and has them mentally
He traces how people are befooled as their intelligence is declining because of the internet and how there are changes in patterns of their behavior. He claims that we are losing our intellect while using the internet as our main source. Carr is trying to prove that the internet is going to shatter our minds
Shawntae Aikens Technology has a found a way into our lives where we use it everyday, and some have come to the point where they depend on it. People have become concerned that the Internet is becoming a distraction and has taken over our lives. The Internet, and social media has become very addicting our smartphones have given us the chance to have the internet and social media at our hands at all times. Nicholas Carr, a writer for the Atlantic Online, wrote the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Within his article he discusses his opinion on how the internet is something that is not helping us at all.
Carr believes that we depend on the Internet more than just looking up the answers in the book ourselves. He is trying to prove that our generation is consumed by the Internet. In addition to this, I feel his argument is effective because he builds credibility with personal facts, using statistics, and making emotional appeals throughout the essay. He gives many details and examples to backup and support his argument. Nicholas Carr gives himself credibility by stating that he knows what’s going on in his own mind, this is where he is uses ethos.
The Influence of Technology In the essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr argues that utilization of the internet has an adverse effect on our way of thinking and functioning in everyday life. Whether it be reading a newspaper, or scrolling through Facebook, internet media has forever stamped its name in our existence. Carr explains to us that the internet is a tool used every single day in today’s society, but also makes most of us complacent with the ease of having the world at our fingertips.