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Summary Of Is Google Making USupid By Nicholas Carr

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For my analysis essay, I will be analyzing the effectiveness of the rhetorical devices in Nicholas Carr’s essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. Carr, a writer who primarily focuses on technology and business, makes a bold claim that the ability to simply search for answers to our issues is weakening our problem solving skills. As the saying goes: if you do not use it, you lose it. Although he admits that the advantages of having unlimited knowledge at our fingertips is invaluable, he also claims that humans tend to misuse the Internet- as soon as anything requires true thought, they go to search engines which think for them. Obviously, his tone on the issue is rather annoyed that people are not using such a helpful tool in the way it was intended …show more content…

On the twelfth page of his paper, he references Plato’s Phaedrus, stating that “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.... ‘cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful’” (Carr 12). By mentioning this simplified example, Carr is able to assist readers in realizing that avoiding the use of our brains will in turn weaken them. Additionally, Carr includes metaphors which incite pathos. He comments that our minds are being subject to pressure to “operate as high-speed data-processing machines” (Carr 12). This is an unhealthy expectation, and it leads most individuals to turn to websites such as Google in order to supplement (or even replace) their own brainpower. Comparing the expectations of our minds to be akin to some sort of supercomputer incites concern in the reader… they may realize for the first time the truth in this statement. Overall, Carr used far more rhetorical devices within his essay than I have been able to elaborate on (including, but not limited to, precise diction, a somewhat casual tone in order to help readers relate, and appositives to build his

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In Is Google Making Us Stupid, Nicholas Carr argues that Internet changes how we think and act. First, he provides a personal example on how he cannot focus on reading for more than a few pages because Google has made him more efficient in doing research by going online rather than grinding through long readings. Then, Carr presents another example on a blogger, Brue Friedman, who also admits that he lost his ability to read long text after search engine became popular. Furthermore, Carr expresses his idea by using an historical example. Friedrich Nietzsche, who bought a typewriter in the late 1800s, changed his style of writing once he got familiar with the typewriter.

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All of these components add up to greatly increase the pathos present in Carr's essay. He ties this reference to the current state of the human population by claiming that we, too, are losing our minds. This puts the reader in the shoes of the computer, and it is a jarring realization. Furthermore, Carr uses a testimony from Bruce Friedman, a blogger who focuses on the use of computers in medicine. Friedman admits that "[he] can't read 'War and Peace' anymore...

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In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, the author suggests that modern technology is changing the way him and other people think. He argues that, in the past, it was much easier to engage in long readings. Now, he claims, reading is more challenging and people are more likely to skim a passage rather than fully absorb the information due to excessive use of the internet (313-314). Carr uses Friedrich Nietzsche’s relationship with his typewriter as an example to express that with every new technology, he warns, the human mind is vulnerable to a change in structure (319). Carr observes and suggests that the more people use and rely on computers, the more the human mind essentially becomes a form of artificial intelligence

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In Nicholas Carr’s article called “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, Carr talks about the many issues he believes are stemming from using online search engines and Google in general. This article was written back in 2016 and published into The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings. Carr discusses his view on the whole idea of online readings and most of the information available to the world being viewed online through a search engine like Google. He also goes into thorough detail explaining how he believes that technology is becoming more advanced and smarter than its creators. In Carr’s article, he will explain all that he believes is wrong with technology in today’s society and how dumbed down it has made us.

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In other words, the internet makes us stupid, and that issue makes me worry about our future knowledge. For ethos, Carr tells that he could not focus

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In, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (2008), Nicholas Carr maintains that the advent of the Internet produced a shallow generation of information consumers who lack the ability to deeply engage with a text and think critically about it. Carr supports his claim by drawing on numerous personal and historical anecdotes and one scientific study. The purpose of Carr’s article is to open dialogue about the potentially adverse effects the Internet could have human cognitive processes to allow individuals to begin to question the impact that the Internet is having on their lives. Carr establishes an informal, causal relationship with the audience. The audience of The Atlantic is generally well-educated, upper-middle class individuals who are likely approaching the article with a relaxed, non-critical lens (most likely embracing the article as a form of “think piece”).

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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

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Meredith Weese D. Ballenger ENGL – 112 10 March 2023 Evaluation Essay Nicholas Carr’s article in The Atlantic magazine July/August 2008 issue titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid” purpose is to inform the readers. With the way the internet and its vast amount of information at the tip of our fingers has altered our ability to dive deep into readings. Whether it is for educational purposes or pleasure our ability to spend hours in a book have changed. Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” achieved its purpose because the examples he used from himself and others, the writing is clear easy to follow as he makes relevant references to the way other technologies have changed our way of thinking, his writing is objective.

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Rhetorical Analysis of Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid? We are at a time where technology is widespread; it has become a part of our everyday life leading to advantages and disadvantages. Technology nowadays has become the most important topic to discuss and everyone has developed their own unique opinion. In Nicholas Carr’s article published in 2008, “Is Google Making Us Stupid” he argues that as technology progresses people’s mentality changes.

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He states that when searching the internet all the information is being almost handed to you. (Carr 732). When he states that “The web has been a godsend to me as a writer”, it shows how much influence the internet has on him while doing research for writing. By Carr using the internet a lot for his type of work and also to to just read blogs and watch videos for entertainment. (Carr 732).

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Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid” was published when the internet was still taking hold in a person’s everyday life. Throughout this article, he talks about how the internet is making our brains lazy because we do not have to go in depth to find what we are looking for. Ever since he started to use the internet, Carr thinks that the of the internet has made it so that he can no longer focus on a long article or research a topic. In this article Carr uses many examples of logos, ethos, and pathos to effectively convey his argument in a way that will convince the reader to believe his arguments.

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Brainless.com: Rhetorical Strategies in Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Do we depend on the Internet to answer all of our questions? Nicholas Carr, an American author, wrote “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” published in 2008 in The Atlantic, and he argues about the effects of the Internet on literacy, cognition, and culture. Carr begins his argument with the ending scene of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading” (Carr). Here Carr expresses his emotion at the beginning for that he feels a changeover years. Carr described the thesis that technology leads to a weakening of our intellectual abilities.

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Rhetorical Analysis In the article “Is Google Making us Stupid?”, author Nicholas Carr expresses his idea that the internet is taking over society and our thinking process. Google is affecting our abilities to read books, longer articles, and even older writings. Carr believes that we have become so accustomed to the ways of the internet, and we are relying on Google 's ability to sort through the details for us so we don 't have to, in order to get the information we find necessary more efficiently. He finds that this process has become almost too handy, and that it is corrupting us from becoming better educated.

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He supports this argument by citing a study conducted by students who have attended The University College London. The study proved to us that we no longer thoroughly read material, rather we just skim over most of what we read. From the convoluted works of the late 19th century, to the material of present day, the way we write and comprehend

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