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Exemplification Essay: Is Google Making USupid

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Social media brings together the millions of people of earth, it has revolutionized the way we think of pen pals; we are able to communicate with other individuals around the world. Most of all we are able to find others with the same interests as us and befriend them. All though it is wonderful to be able to do this it has also caused a backfire. Joe Keohane, a journalist states in his article “How facts backfire,” that backfire is a phenomenon in which people with a strong set of beliefs will not change their belief even if there are facts given (1). Facts are supposed to enlighten an individual’s opinion not enhance their mistaken one. The internet more importantly social media, has caused a backfire to individuals posting their opinions …show more content…

Nicholas Carr a journalist and author of four books states in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” that Google is trying to develop the perfect search engine to, “understand exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want” (4). It’s easy to avoid facts that show or even prove that your belief is wrong. If you do not agree with an article that pops up on your Facebook feed you can simply click the hid button and the article will disappear from your news feed. Moreover it works vice versa, if you happen to enjoy an article that praises your opinion you can like it and Facebook will give you similar articles, hence making you more prone to ignore opinions that are against your own. You can also do the same with people’s individual social media accounts. If you agree with a person’s opinions on Twitter, you can follow them and Twitter will give you …show more content…

Keohane quotes political scientist Brendan Nyhan, researcher for the Michigan Study “The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong” (1). It’s sinister to admit that you were wrong in something that you believe in, and worse to admit it on social media. So an individual wanting to avoid this dilemma will simply find any sort of information that can somehow show that their opinion is right and post it to their social media page, regardless if there are facts to counter it. Even if a person is willing to see information that counters their opinion or someone wants to prove the other wrong, those individuals may not read the facts because the article maybe too long. Carr explains that while using the internet we have lost concentration on deep reading (1). “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb” (Carr 1). As many try to deep read and actually concentrate on the words in front of them it may be too much to take in that they’ll simply stop reading and stick with their opinion. Furthermore if a being posts their opinions on social media anybody anywhere can prove them wrong by sending links to confirmed facts. Together with Carrs observations on our new way of reading, they will ignore the person and their link and jeopardize changing their

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In “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” published in The Atlantic on July 2008, American writer Nicholas Carr comes to the realization that the constant usage of the internet is changing how the average person reads and remembers. Carr says: “The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes”. Nicholas Carr believes that the internet is a valuable tool, but there are concerns based on how it is used. The author thinks that this can be seen in the fact that people are more likely to skim an article to try and get the information wanted, causing an easy and lazy way of achieving the wanted information.

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On online websites, being paranoid about others' gaping views prevents a person from showing their true actions and opinions to each other. For example, in “The Republic," the main character finds a ring that makes him invisible. “So with the help of this ring, he committed many crimes and took over the kingdom” (Plato 1). This story proves that a person will only act like a good human while being watched. If a person using social media had the option to do anything they wanted without being watched, having a bad digital footprint, or being judged, they would definitely do terrible things without a thought.

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Humanity is in a perpetual state of trying to make living in the world an easier place. In just a few seconds, people can access information at their disposal, instead of having to look through different books to find what you need. But the question arises; does this boundless place for information honestly make us more informed than before we had the internet? Joe Keohane, the author of the article “How Facts Backfire,” is a political journalist who has also written articles on technology and culture.  

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Many students research their homework questions on the world famous web browser google. This concept is shared in Is Google making us Stupid? by Nicholas Carr. “Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone or something has been tinkering with my brain” (Carr 16). Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, and etc is messing with societies brains without even realizing it. These websites may be a critical help to research for homework, work, and many other things, but ultimately reading endless pages and clicking links is not a way to learn and educate the mind with crucial information.

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Analysis of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr’s article Is Google Making Us Stupid? argues that quick, massive information is detrimental to critical thinking. Throughout his essay, Carr provides historical examples and his own ideas to defend his argument. Along with this main argument, Carr makes other claims to back up his argument. His paper addresses many topics, but it fails to delve into each topic and claim sufficiently in some cases.

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The human brain does not treat this data seriously because those data did not give user strong impression when it receives it, which causes readers losing their patience while reading the unimportant information. People used to go through a lot of reading to get information that they wanted, they read, they analyze, they think, but now search engines quickly provided relevant information for them. Some people think that search engines provide a fast way for people to get information and it will make everything more convenient. This idea is wrong because even though people obtain information more easily, they are getting too much information, more than they expect.

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The Internet is widely used around the world, originally acting as a source to find information quickly online, but nowadays it has developed so much that people also use it as a way to communicate with others, as well as sharing opinions on blogs and other social media. In the article titled “The Things People Say: Rumors in an Age of Unreason”, published in the New Yorker (November 2009), staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert discusses how individuals only believe what agrees with their views, and argues that people are the source of rumors and misinformation, especially online. Kolbert supports this claim by first introducing the video of a birther speaking out against President Barack Obama’s birth certificate as an example, describing the skepticism

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Overcoming the Echo Chamber Effect To overcome the social media echo chambers that are an active issue today, we must address the problem structurally. If social media apps begin to allow a feed of general and diverse ideas or issues, alongside our typical feed, then we will start to see gradual improvements in critical thinking, the way we challenge ideas and overall synthesization. However, this will likely cease to ever happen because social media is structured in a way that keeps us interacting with things we like to see more of the same or similar content. "The fact that social media platforms confirm what we already believe is the reason many people use them in the first place," he says. "If the platforms didn't do that, they wouldn't be successful.

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Although social media can be powerful for voicing opinions and thoughts to a wide variety of people within minutes, it does not involve strong-tie connections and therefore results with less participates interested in the commitment and high risks necessary to catalyze a

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Wilson went on to say, not to have the avenue of twitter could be just as bad. On sites like twitter, utilizing social media can have some awesome leverage and some horrible disadvantages, in cases such as these, you have accept the good with the bad. This article is a prime example of uncertainty in social proof. While one person could have a bad day and their burger is bad, one tweet on a social media site such as twitter will travel faster than lightening. In this case, more bad than good tweets will go out about experiences with McDonald’s food.

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I conceded that in some ways Google is making us stupid. For example, Carr said “The more they use the web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing” (Carr pg733). For example, sometimes when looking up information it is not always reliable or creditable, one example would be Wikipedia people can change the information and the writing can become false information. Another major problem with google is social anxiety, people are not having face to face interaction with each other, making it harder to be social.

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Truth tends to be an extremely misleading and concerning topic in today’s world. Having the ability to gain trust in someone and their actions is a very important concept in life. Honesty should be taught at a young age and should be continuously shown and practiced throughout life in general. Everyone has different views and opinions on the presidency, politics, etc., but there is one concept that everyone should be able to agree on and that is that the simple fact that the president of the United States should always be honest, protective, and prompt with anything and everything that he does.

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This, in turn, does the opposite of what social media were intended to do. Instead of allowing the expression of unaltered and original ideas, it is a platform of suppressed individualism which only encourages mainstream concepts. Conformity is seen everywhere, society encourages it. Social Media, News Broadcasters, and the FCC are all examples of underlying ways the top one percent can monitor and manipulate the ways people live their lives. Most people are controlled by others around them; posts on social media

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This however, might give less credibility to the information given. The medium that provides the information influences the level of credibility. A study was conducted and it shows that if “more users of the social media produce the same views in the form of blogs, posts, scraps, reviews, comments etc., about a product it makes product related information credible,” Mir, I., & Zaheer, A. (2012). This goes hand in hand with the social impact theory (Latane, 1981), which proposes the influence on an individual’s behavior towards a piece of information say if there is an increase of people in a group on social media. This journal showed good points about the reinforcement of messages on social media can result to youths believing in them.

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Dangers of Social Media Lots of people post on social media about their beliefs right? People post their oppian on the network everyday. Many people get in trouble because they forget that nothing goes away and anyone can look at it. Lots of people don't know that when they apply for a job their social media can be searched or checked.

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