“Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Argument Analysis
In July 2008, Nicholas Carr wrote an article for The Atlantic magazine, titled “Is Google making us stupid?” (Carr, 2008). In this paper, I will analyze the argument he presents. Although Carr begins with addressing a question in the title, a more specific definition of the exact problem that the argument tackles is, “Is the internet changing the way we think and behave by making us read and process information differently?” (Young, Becker, & Pike, 1970, p. 92). Carr answers this “question of fact” with his main claim that yes, the internet is changing the way we think (Young, Becker, & Pike, 1970, p. 94). His grand strategy is an equal combination of “argument by analogy” and “ethotic argument”
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90). Carr first has a sense of a feeling that something is wrong, and then he attempts to put it into words. Once he has done so, he realizes how his description of what is wrong with his “concentration” when reading seems similar to how he browses the internet, and he says “I think I know what’s going on” (Carr, 2008). Carr draws an analogy between the way he reads books to the way he reads articles on the internet. Using the argument by analogy argumentation scheme, his line of thought is as such: Reading on the internet is similar to reading a book, and when reading on the internet, you are distracted easily, and so when reading a book, you are distracted easily (Walton, 1996, pp. 77-80). This is the foundation, or rather the first observation, that the author builds his main claim upon, with the assumption that the two examples of reading on the internet and reading a book are “relevantly similar” enough to be compared (Weston, 2008, p.