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Is Google Making USupid By Nicholas G. Carr

521 Words3 Pages

The Internet offers an abundance of information and has become a universal medium. The ease of access and the fast-paced nature of online content has tinkered with an individual’s mind and how they function. Nicholas G. Carr’s wrote an excerpt titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid” where he argued that the Internet, with all its simplicity, is limiting his capacity to concentrate. With the powerful advantages of using the Internet, it does not necessarily mean individuals must sacrifice their ability to read deeply and think reflectively. As with most topics, it depends on the individual and the medium they are using. Scholars from University College London found that, “people using the sites exhibited ‘a form of skimming activity,’ hopping from …show more content…

Additionally, the internet is associated with instant gratification. When people use a search engine like Google to research a specific topic, they want instant access to the information. The internet is essentially viewed as a tool that makes working and researching much easier. With that mindset, individuals are only interested in consuming information as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Although it can hinder a person’s ability to read and think critically, it does not sacrifice it. As mentioned before, the medium plays an important role. When using the internet, it is tempting to go to Youtube, play a game, or switch to a different website. The internet, as a medium designed for efficiency, scatters an individual’s attention and diffuses their concentration. With the advancement of software and the internet, people don’t feel the need to read and reflect critically. They become accustomed to the internet giving a summary, or the most important points to a specific topic. I could relate to this myself. When I do research on a topic, I tend to skim an article or find a quick summary of the topic. That is only for efficiency and

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In, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (2008), Nicholas Carr maintains that the advent of the Internet produced a shallow generation of information consumers who lack the ability to deeply engage with a text and think critically about it. Carr supports his claim by drawing on numerous personal and historical anecdotes and one scientific study. The purpose of Carr’s article is to open dialogue about the potentially adverse effects the Internet could have human cognitive processes to allow individuals to begin to question the impact that the Internet is having on their lives. Carr establishes an informal, causal relationship with the audience. The audience of The Atlantic is generally well-educated, upper-middle class individuals who are likely approaching the article with a relaxed, non-critical lens (most likely embracing the article as a form of “think piece”).

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In his essay Is Google Making Us Stupid, Nicholas Carr argues that our dependence on the Internet changes the way we read and think. He includes his own personal testimony to support this claim, as well as others’ descriptions, including several friends, and bloggers that Carr quote. While he lacks scientific proof supporting his claim, multiple testimonies support his claim that the internet has changed the way people think. However, Carr views this negatively, saying that “I’m not thinking the way I used to think… my concentration often starts to drift… I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text” (633-634).

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The article by Nicholas Carr: “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is Doing to our brains” (2008), explains the effect that the internet has on the way people go on about their daily lives and how it influences their habits and thoughts. He uses easy and not-strictly academic words along his article to argue that people’s concentration skills have reduced because of their high use of the internet to find information. He does so with the use of literary elements such as diction, tone and poetic devices. Therefore, by using these strategies, Carr creates a homespun persona with which he transcends his message to approach his readers.

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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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