Summary Of Is Google Making USupid By Nicholas Carr

In Nicholas Carr’s essay, “Is Google Making us Stupid?”, he argues that the more humans rely on computers for understanding, the more human intelligence will fall. He starts his argument off by referencing the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Carr uses this movie to compare how the supercomputer in the movie feels his mind going and how he feels the same. He then gets into the specifics of this memory lost. Carr goes into how he can no longer read for longs periods of time. He makes it clear how easy it use to be for him, now he can barely read something of length without losing focus. Carr proposes an idea on why this is starting to happen. He says his problem is directly connected to his increase of time online. To show he isn’t one of those

Carr understands who his audience is and you can clearly see this in his essay. He doesn’t list of a series of his previous accomplishments to seem superior to the reader. In fact, simple things like his education level aren’t even mentioned in the essay. At the same time, Carr doesn’t make himself seem under qualified. He makes himself seem relatable without coming off as uninformed. In Carr’s essay he says, “ The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle”(Carr 731). In this one line he establishes his credibility for the entire essay. Just by hinting at the fact at one point he use to be able to read deeply proves he is capable of making an educated analysis on his decline in reading ability. Even though that sentence was “good”, what makes Carr’s essay effective is he proves his credibility one than once to ensure it. In his own words Carr says, “ Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes”(Carr 732). Someone who wasn’t deep into education or learning in general wouldn’t have put that much time into doing so. By putting into the readers mind that at one point he had spent literally days working on being a scholar, Carr makes it obvious that he is the best person to be arguing this

Even though this makes an effective argument, Carr isn’t afraid to go above and beyond to prove his point. Carr gives credit where credit is due and he compares his argument to a proposal made by Socrates. Socrates is a well-known and respected philosopher so this adds even more credibility to his argument. Carr says,“ … Socrates bemoaned the development of writing. He feared that, as people came to rely on the written word as a substitute for the knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would, in the words of one of the dialogue’s characters, “cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.” And because they would be able to “receive a quantity of information without proper instruction,” they would “be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant” They would be “filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom”(Carr 742). Socrates point isn’t exactly the same as Carr’s argument, however; it was an acknowledgement to a previous research so it fits perfectly into the