Summary Of Is Google Making USupid By Nicholas Carr

In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” by Nicholas Carr, Carr claims that the internet changes how we think as humans and as a society. His claim comes from his observation that he was losing his capacity to read large amounts of text, after having been spoiled by the immediate nature of the internet. Though he seems to believe that the internet will negatively impact society, it is unclear what his intentions are. Whether he is trying to persuade us that the internet is negative or whether he is just trying to get us to think about the effects of the internet, Carr utilizes literary devices such as rhetorical appeals--ethos, logos, and pathos--and procatalepsis in his argument to effectively critique the internet. Carr starts off

Procatalepsis comes up naturally throughout the article because his intentions are more in line with making discussion rather than convincing us that the internet is bad. As previously mentioned before, the effectiveness of his usage of ethos is debating depending on how his audience gauges the credibility of the literary types. Carr is aware of that, as he mentions “anecdotes alone don’t prove much,” and goes on to provide studies done by reputable universities (316). Once again, he may be appealing to ethos with the reputation of the universities, however, the studies are appealing to logos as well. Naysayers may discredit sources that they are unfamiliar with, but naysayers will not be able to deny scientific evidence. Another example where procatalepsis occurs is when Carr offers the arrival of the printing press. Hieronimo Squarciafico was worried people would become intellectually lazy and thus have weak minds because books were now readily available (326). On the one hand, it is a common knowledge that the printing press was more of a blessing than it was a curse. On the other hand, the issues that Squarciafico and other critics of the printing press pointed out were shown to either be correct or predictive of what may come (327). Similarly, Carr seems to be the Squarciafico of the internet age. He concedes that he could be wrong, but he

As previously mentioned, Carr likely wants his audience to critically think about the internet; persuasion that the internet might bring about intellectual tragedy comes second to that. Personally, a lot of his examples of ethos are effective only if the “authorities” mentioned were familiar names. For example, the bloggers were people I have never heard of, and thus, their testimonies are the same value to me as the testimonies of someone who posts on Twitter. However, in gauging whether he succeeded in getting me to think about the internet more, Carr definitely succeeded. All in all then, Carr’s article was one that wants to critically challenge thought by revealing the points of view from both side and letting the readers make their own