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Is Google Making USupid By Nicholas Carr

645 Words3 Pages

Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” published in 2008 to the Atlantic magazine brings forth the argument of how modern technology, like in the past, has affected us into changing the way we think, and go about taking in information. Throughout the article he supports arguments with personal accounts of colleagues as well as past accounts in advancements in technology that shaped modern day. Carr’s article begins with dialogue from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in which he relates with the supercomputer HAL as it loses its mind when Bowman disconnects its memory circuits. Carr like many of us today states that when reading he now finds himself distracted, unable to concentrate and make connections with the text. He implies that the reason for it is that the internet has changed how he operates, he feels as if the vast amount of things to do while surfing the net as he goes from thread to thread and consumes different types of media has reshaped his malleable brain into wanting to do the same when reading anything of significance. …show more content…

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

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Nicholas Carr claims his opinion on how computer and internet changed people’s way of thinking and going to turn people into machines in the essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid”. He states current situation that we are in a Internet era and his mind is not going like before when we focused on deep reading. First of all, the new universal medium Net reshape our process of thought, from concentrating on one reading to skimming readings. Although we read more, we did not completely understand it and made a rich mental connection with it. He talks about how Google’s value contradict people’s healthy growth.

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Carr describes himself over the past few years as being inadequate of reading a full book. He formulates a theory saying that the Internet is a “universal medium”, where people have instant access to almost any topic imaginable. Because of the accessibility of the Internet,

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He explains how the creation of the printing press was believed to make people “less studious and weakening their minds,” (Carr) because the printing press allowed the common man to read almost anything at a time when books had to be handwritten. He also gives the example of the clock being brought into everyday life in the 14th Century and how it gave scientists a more understandable way to mathematically prove their theories, so more people could understand. These examples give the reader a better sense of the author’s point of view. He argues the internet has become one of these new technologies that many people were skeptical about, but he proves to the reader how it became an important advancement in content

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He mentioned how the Internet is making people wanting quick information so they don’t have to read articles or think about any answers. Carr is talking based on his experience with the Internet, because he is including himself as one of the people who had been effected by the Internet. Any reader can notice the amount of first- hand knowledge on the Internet problem. Also, Carr spoke in his article “the Net is becoming a universal medium’’, that shows his readers that Carr is very relatable to anyone else using the Internet. This allows his readers to believe Carr’s judgment, that he used

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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

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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.

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He uses the phrase “I think I know what’s going on” (Carr 314) which proves his uncertainty of the reason. He also contradicts himself by stating that research now is much easier than it used to be before the internet, which brings the audience to question themselves and Carr about his point of view. And to be more self-contradicting, Carr states that the internet is a “Godsend” (Carr 314) to him as a writer, making his argument out of shape. Carr is also known to write multiple repetitive articles and about the issues caused by the usage of technology, but from what humans are experiencing so far, technology did nothing but improvements to the human culture, facilitating research, and helping to bring scientific discoveries to the surface.

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He includes stories from organizations such as The New York Times and prominent figures who have had negative side effects including an ignorant attention span due to the Internet. Based on Carr’s essay, it can be said that we are a very distracted set of species. For example, scholars from the University of London conducted a study regarding the outcomes of research practices and their results showed that humans “typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would ‘bounce’ out to another site” (Carr 574). Based on this, it’s evident that we are, in fact, distracted and we “go online to avoid reading in a traditional sense” (574). Nicholas Carr's justified argument elucidates that media shapes the way we think and process information, which increases a high dependency on one source, a race with time, information distribution, and the inability to read printed

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The concept that the internet creates a culture of rapid satisfaction and constant distraction is another point Carr makes in his essay. He speaks about how the layout of content on the internet, with its links, ads, and limited reading time, encourages people to scroll rather than read carefully. Carr suggests that this culture of distraction may be the reason behind our inability to focus and concentrate for a longer amount of time. Many of Carr's observations about how reading and thinking have changed in the digital age are in his essay "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" are views that I agree with. My own experience confirms it-

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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.

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He writes about a feeling of a change of thought process he gets when he reads. Reading books or lengthy articles came easily to Carr, but now he cannot stay focused on what he reads for more than a few pages. He believes his struggle to concentrate on long texts originates from spending too much time online, saying that any kind of research he needs can be found and fulfilled in minutes. Carr also explains that reading online has been converted to skimming pages and searching for summaries of his desired info, instead of reading full length articles. When an author, such as Carr, can directly relate to the subject, it makes his writing much more sincere and

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In “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr feels that over past few years there’s been a change in the way he thinks. Carr observes that there is something that is changing his memory and restructuring his brain’s way of thinking. Carr suggests that research that would require hours in library going through bundles of text has now ended up in few searches on google, which has degraded the power of contemplation and concentration in a human brain. Carr points out that he is not the only one with this reading problem he has other acquaintances that have similar problem of focusing on large pieces of writing.

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After reading the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, our group came to a decision that we agreed with Carr. Google is, in fact, making us stupid. Throughout the article, Carr emphasizes how our minds are changing as a result of the time we spend online. Throughout the article, Carr makes the argument that the internet has affected how human beings process and retain information. The problem with the internet that Carr addresses are that media does not just supply information to the users, it also shapes the thoughts that flow in the people's minds.

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Instead the readers are receiving information all about cons of using internet. Also, for instances, Carr failed to provide the reality of today’s internet

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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.

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