Every day new technology is advancing to makes its way into the world where it is used more efficiently. In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,”, Nicholas Carr claims that human are no longer able to focus on longer texts due to the rise of digital texts. Nicholas Carr includes strong evidences to support his statement; and through the usage of ethos and pathos, he is able to convince his readers that “the Net is becoming a universal medium” (Carr). Examples of Ethos are evident throughout the article making Carr’s argument deductively valid. Nicholas Carr is known for his reputation as someone who has written influential pieces and earning many awards for his accomplishments.
I am analyzing Nicholas Carr's essay titled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", where he supports his message using the pathos associated with his use of allusions, anecdotes, testimonies, and powerful diction. In the beginning of his essay, Carr provides the reader with an allusion to Stanley Kubrick's "A Space Odyssey". This reference reads "'Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave.
In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, the author suggests that modern technology is changing the way him and other people think. He argues that, in the past, it was much easier to engage in long readings. Now, he claims, reading is more challenging and people are more likely to skim a passage rather than fully absorb the information due to excessive use of the internet (313-314). Carr uses Friedrich Nietzsche’s relationship with his typewriter as an example to express that with every new technology, he warns, the human mind is vulnerable to a change in structure (319). Carr observes and suggests that the more people use and rely on computers, the more the human mind essentially becomes a form of artificial intelligence
Nicholas Carr is a writer who writes in these kind of field: technology, business, and culture. Carr wrote this essay called, “Is Google Making us Stupid”; Carr fully explains how internet changes people’s thinking, a way of reading, and knowledge with rhetoric strategies. For logos, Carr thoroughly supports his arguments with great supporting points from credit sources. He explains how the internet affects us in reading. For pathos, he points out that human’s brain would work differently since we are using the internet widely comparing to the generation, whom lives without the internet.
In “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Nicholas Carr argues that Google is deteriorating the human mind. He mentions that people no longer want or even need to deeply read information and retain it because the particular information that they are looking for can just be Googled. In fact, he argues against this by stating that everything is not available on Google, and things that are available on Google are not necessarily true. Another con of this, he states, is that it is extremely difficult to read off of a computer screen. Carr argues that people’s brains are not programmed to read something in depth if it is off of a computer or phone screen.
In his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid” (2008), Nicholas Carr argues that the use of the internet has affected human beings to process information. For example, reading in front of a screen and reading a printed book is not the same thing. Carr supports his assertion by his own and others experiences reading and searching information online and viewing how it has negatively shaped their ability to read long texts. He states that he cannot concentrate reading a long piece for a certain amount of time without losing focus. His purpose is to is to warn the internet and technology users of the adverse mental effects that these devices have on individuals.
In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” by Nicholas Carr, Carr claims that the internet changes how we think as humans and as a society. His claim comes from his observation that he was losing his capacity to read large amounts of text, after having been spoiled by the immediate nature of the internet. Though he seems to believe that the internet will negatively impact society, it is unclear what his intentions are. Whether he is trying to persuade us that the internet is negative or whether he is just trying to get us to think about the effects of the internet, Carr utilizes literary devices such as rhetorical appeals--ethos, logos, and pathos--and procatalepsis in his argument to effectively critique the internet. Carr starts off
Meredith Weese D. Ballenger ENGL – 112 10 March 2023 Evaluation Essay Nicholas Carr’s article in The Atlantic magazine July/August 2008 issue titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid” purpose is to inform the readers. With the way the internet and its vast amount of information at the tip of our fingers has altered our ability to dive deep into readings. Whether it is for educational purposes or pleasure our ability to spend hours in a book have changed. Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” achieved its purpose because the examples he used from himself and others, the writing is clear easy to follow as he makes relevant references to the way other technologies have changed our way of thinking, his writing is objective.
For my analysis essay, I will be analyzing the effectiveness of the rhetorical devices in Nicholas Carr ’s essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. Carr, a writer who primarily focuses on technology and business, makes a bold claim that the ability to simply search for answers to our issues is weakening our problem solving skills. As the saying goes: if you do not use it, you lose it. Although he admits that the advantages of having unlimited knowledge at our fingertips is invaluable, he also claims that humans tend to misuse the Internet- as soon as anything requires true thought, they go to search engines which think for them.
Google is changing the way we perceive, process and interpret about different things. “I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading… Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.(Carr 313)”
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.
A well-known author, Nicholas Carr, in his article, “Is Google Making us Stupid” explains to us in great detail why he believes that the internet is affecting our brains in a negative way. In this article, Carr wants us to believe that Google is making us stupid because we are losing our ability to focus on longer novels and bigger word choices. His purpose is to try and show us why he believes that using the internet has lowered our ability to read and think the way we used to. He wants to show all of us readers, who are always on the internet everyday of our lives, through personal experiences and research how the internet has becoming damaging to our brains. Carr is able to use logos, pathos and Ethos to show the readers his purpose.
Nicholas Carr’s article titled Is Google Making us Stupid was written to deliver an urgent message to the reader. Carr’s purpose for writing this article was to inform the masses of the potential dangers in how new technologies change the ways our minds work. He is trying to warn us how writing has reduced our capability to remember details in our heads, just like the internet has been able to change the way our brains store, acquire, and handle information. The author makes the argument that Carr makes a reference to the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey. In his reference he tells the reader about the HAL computer who uncannily perfectly expresses human emotion, as it shares its concern that its data banks and artificial brain is being shut down
Amanda Green Mrs. Boone Eng. 111. 4236 26 February 2018 Is Google Really Making Us Stupid?
“On the Uses of Liberal Education” written by Mark Edmundson offers this notion that the college network is becoming something more of a pay-n-go than an institute of higher education, students are more disconsolate and looking towards the professors for entertainment. It is becoming less about the education and more about filling seats and acquiring money. Parents could be partially blamed for their children who grow to be too scared to stand up or be criticized, they would rather stay quiet and let the professors be their entertainment. “I want some of them to say that they’ve been changed by the course”, this made me realize that this doesn’t happen enough and I agree with Edmundson that it’s somewhat due to imperturbable students since
