Summary of "Is Google Making Us Stupid" by Nicholas Carr The internet has become a necessity for many people these days, it provides quick information and is a primary source of knowledge. In the article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid", the author Nicholas Carr, is describing the effects that technology has on the human brain. Carr begins with a scene from the end of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, where supercomputer HAL is being disconnected by astronaut Dave Bowman who was sent to space on a deadly mission by the machine.
Harvard Writer, Nicholas Carr, in his Advocacy article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” Describes the altering effects of the internet and search engines on our brains. Carr´s purpose is to get the reader aware of the impact the internet has on our everyday life. He adopts a informative tone in order to appeal emotionally and logically to his audience. Carr begins his advocacy for the internet by acknowledging that in ¨A Space Odyssey¨ when they rely too much on Artificial Intelligence it could get a human killed, in this example the supercomputer HAL almost drifted astronaut Dave Bowman into a deep space death by the malfunctioning machine; Showing that the astronaut is superior than a machine. He appeals to the emotion of sadness by admitting that “I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something has been tinkering with my brain” he is “not thinking the way i used to.”
In the article “Is Google making us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, Carr proposes that technology is causing a negative effect on our brain. Carr believes that since he’s been on the internet a lot more in the past decade he notices that his mind can’t focus on books or essays anymore. Even bloggers, that Carr follows, are coming up with the same conclusion. Since internet access is so quick it’s changing how our minds work and that we are becoming depended on the internet for everything. Carr goes on to say how he thinks that as long as we rely on computers mediate our understanding of the world that our own intelligence will become mixed into artificial intelligence.
“Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory…” or so Nicholas Carr feels. Could you imagine a Dawn of artificial intelligence? A new world where the human mind was replaced with technology. There is an article that Carr wrote, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” where he describes, in great detail, the fact that he feels the internet is changing our minds and revolutionizing the way we think; but is that such a bad thing? Carr believes so.
I happen to agree with Carr’s assertion that the Internet is changing how we think, however, what I don’t agree with is that this change is for the worse. Carr discusses neuroplasticity and how Internet use is altering the way our brains process information (95). Carr appears to imply that this change would have negative impacts purely because the Internet is the catalyst; however “plasticity is generally seen as a positive feature” (Lehrer). Perhaps I am not grasping why “Carr is interested in its[neuroplasticity] dark side” (Lehrer) , maybe he fears that if the Internet vanished for some reason we would be unable to function; however, in this case the same thing would happen, i.e. our brain would re-adapt to a world without the
The internet ‘spoon feeds’ us with any kind of information we would otherwise search for in different creative ways like exploring new places in case of research hence dwindling our reasoning capacity. For example, in class on 14th June 2016, a classmate said that when her child asks her a question from the homework, she consults the internet without even thinking about the questions. This is how the internet resembles a virus eating our brain. When we become addicted to the internet, our focus is lost because it’s very hard to stay on track. Switching on the internet automatically triggers our access to different interesting but ineffectual pages.
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 movie by Stanley Kubrick based on Arthur Clarke's short story The Sentinel. The story and the movie discuss many themes, but the most important one would be the theme of evolution of mankind; it is important because one can see how the actor/author focused on it more than any other theme. The movie opens up with a tribe of apes, (and as it is believed by many, apes are humans' ancestors.)
Nicholas Carr, What the Internet is doing to Our Brains The Shallows (2010) asserts that, “The price we pay to assume technology’s power is alienation.” He supports this assertion by saying, “They both ultimately achieve their mental and behavioral effects by shaping the synaptic organization of the brain.” Also by, “ We long to keep it activated.” The writer concludes in order for people to improve their thoughts, they will have to cope with the new technology and how they think. Carr believes that technology is taking over how people interact with each other.
Director Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey paints a 1968 image of the year 2001 and the predicted progress that humanity has made. The film takes the audience on a journey through space, to places that even today, we could only dream of. Kubrick’s brilliance shines throughout this film exposing a dark image over human progress. The two particular scenes that most accurately show this dark image is the “Dawn of Man” scene, where Kubrick shows humanities first use of tools, and the “Hal versus Humanity” scene, where Kubrick shows Hal killing most of the crew on the mission.
Our way of thinking is beginning to change to the way that computers do. Advancements are made everyday. These new advancements are attempting to make life in general easier for everyone. Nicholas Carr makes the claim that, “as the internet because our primary source of the information it is affecting our ability to read books and other long narratives.” Carr suggests that using the internet is altering the way that our minds operate.
2001: A Space Odyssey is, perhaps, one of the single most revered films in cinematic history. Directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the writings of Arthur C. Clarke – the film is a heady think piece on human existence and the search for purpose and meaning to the world. Told through three different time spanning segments, we witness the evolution of man and the ultimate grapple with the question of who created us. Hidden in this film though, lies deep political, social, and sexual themes that lead to Kubrick’s final message to humanity.
Your introduction is eye catching because you are giving a unique perspective on this important film. The emphasis on the changes of our planet, is probably the most talked aspect of this movie but is only a small part in what makes the movie great. Anyone can talk about the progress we have made, however they cannot tell it in a way people like Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke and Gyorgy Ligeti can. Our society has a tendency to overly condense lots of things, among them being “2001: A Space Odyssey” and your introduction says that it will not which builds the pathway to an intriguing essay.
Stanley Kubrick (1928 - 1999) was a multitalented American film director, best known for films that sparks the imagination, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the obligatory, A Clockwork Orange (1971), the horror, The Shining (1980), and the polarizing, Full Metal Jacket (1987). Highly influential, a true auteur of his generation, much like the popular French New Wave that included famous directors Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Kubrick was famously part of those other experimental filmmakers across the Atlantic Ocean known as the American New Wave (New Hollywood) during the same era. Kubrick was no ordinary director; he was also a producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, and photographer. After
Since the creation of PCs and the web, people have turned out to be increasingly reliant upon them, regularly investing hours pursuing and surfing the profundities of the World Wide Web. According to Nicholas Carr, “With the exception of alphabets and number systems, the Net may well be the single most powerful mind-altering technology that has ever come into general use. At the very least, it’s the most powerful that has come along since the book” (118). Carr is stating that the web makes the cerebrum be influenced more than whatever other types of innovation. With the development of the printing press, books had majorly affected the brain, however, between that time and the innovation of the web, no other gadget has had the impact that the web has.
Nicholas Carr's argument against the internet was very strong, and it persuaded me. It is very difficult for me to go against his opinion. I agree that the internet is changing us, but not in ways we think. There are long-term effects of using the internet as often as we do. He states that the internet is changing the way our brains function such as having a shorter attention span, negatively changing the way we critically think, and negatively changing our reading skills.
