Summary Of Is Google Making USupid By Nicholas Carr

Could looking up information on the internet possibly make you dumber instead of smarter? People all over the world has smartphones, smartwatches, and laptops but do not focus on how or if these items have an effect on them. In his article, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, Nicholas Carr talks about the internet,how it has many detrimental effects on the people who use it.

When Carr began to analyze the internet, he referenced the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Carr used this to show how the internet dehumanized people. He states that the internet makes it harder to concentrate and to sustainably read. For a blogger Bruce Friedman, who had a passion for reading, it has become difficult to finish a blog post. The same is happening with Scott Karp,

He strengthens his argument by quoting James Olds, a professor of neuroscience, and Daniel Bell, a sociologist. Both Olds and Bell states that technology affects the brain by causing new circuits to form in place of the old ones. Since the internet is so popular, most previous media have to change in order to keep up with the internet. He went on to state that everything from the news to magazines and newspapers have adapted to the change due to the internet. Most articles in the newspaper and magazines were shortened, and there are now crawls at the bottom of the screen while the news is

He stated “ What Taylorism did for the work of the hand,Google is doing for the work of the mind.” Carr explains that Google wants to “better off the brains” by creating an artificial intelligence. By saying this, it shows that Google thinks the brain is simply a computer that needs an upgrade rather than the complex thing it is. He goes back to the idea of deep thinking and reading and how the internet is turning people into what Richard Foreman calls “pancake people.” He explains pancake people as people who have a lot of information spread out and whose information is not deeply rooted. Carr does not just talk about the internet alone, but compares it to other technology that has been invented throughout history. Friedrich Nietzsche began to write with a typewriter and he and his friend noticed a change in the way he was writing. They both agreed that his writing had become more robotic than before.He explained how humans changed when the clock became more accessible. Carr put a quote that said that the people began to listen to the clock in order to make decisions in their everyday life such as eat, sleep, and work. He puts in his paper some counter arguments as