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What the internet is doing to our brains by nicholas carr
What the internet is doing to our brains by nicholas carr
What the internet is doing to our brains by nicholas carr
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Carr expresses that his mind and how he thinks changed due to the new phenomenon “the Internet.” He proves his point by explaining that the internet has reprogrammed our minds to want everything quick and complete. To me, this was effective because once the reader thinks about it, they start realizing how accurate this actually is. By successfully, including pathos he interacts with the any type of audience and has them mentally
“Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory…” or so Nicholas Carr feels. Could you imagine a Dawn of artificial intelligence? A new world where the human mind was replaced with technology. There is an article that Carr wrote, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” where he describes, in great detail, the fact that he feels the internet is changing our minds and revolutionizing the way we think; but is that such a bad thing? Carr believes so.
He notes that the development of writing and the printing press led to significant changes in the way people thought and communicated. By comparing the internet to these historical developments, Carr suggests that the digital age is simply the latest iteration in a long line of technological advances that have fundamentally altered human cognition. In addition, Carr appeals to expert testimony to support his argument. He cites studies and quotes from prominent neuroscientists and researchers who suggest that the internet may be negatively impacting our ability to concentrate and process information.
Is the internet changing our ability to focus? Or more importantly, is the internet harming our ability to focus or enhancing it? Based on my interpretation of Nicholas Carr’s essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, I believe he thinks it is making us worse. Although he did bring up a few valid points, his opinion is flawed due to the many benefits of the internet as well as a few assumptions he’s made of the effects it’s had on the human population. Nicholas Carr’s essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, brings towards us the argument that the Internet is changing the way think and do day to day activities.
M.I.T professor, Sherry Turkle published an article “Stop Googling. Let’s Talk” to the New York Times September 26th, 2015. In her article, she focuses on how technology has impacted our interactions with one another. The article also states how our emotions such as empathy are starting to deplenish. In part of the article she goes on to talk about how we can substitute technology with solitude.
Carr continues talking about his own experience and explains, ““They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.” Technology plays a major role in shaping our thinking, because it results in us thinking less about what we’re seeing online and just assuming that it’s true. It’s depriving us of the ability to challenge the information, which puts us in danger of misinformation and lack of individual thought.
Nicholas Carr argues that the exponential increase of technology has led to a more connected society but also more alienated and less able to engage with our natural capacities. Carr believes intelligent technologies like the internet amplify and numb our most intimate human capabilities, including reason, perception, memory, and emotion. In The Shallows, on page 211, Nicholas Carr states, "The price we pay to assume technology's power is alienation. The toll can be particularly high with intellectual technologies. The tools of the mind amplify and, in turn, numb the most intimate, the most human, of our natural capacities- those for a reason, perception, memory, emotion.
Nicholas Carr in The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (2010) asserts that, “With the exception of alphabets and number systems, the net may well be the single most powerful mind-altering technology that has ever come into general use. At the very least, it’s the most powerful that has come along since the book.” (Carr, 2010, Pg. 108) Carr explains this quote throughout the entire book. He continues by adding real world examples and data from other studies. From all of the information that is gathered for this book, he creates the idea that internet has drastically changed culture and brought forward new ways of thinking that will exist for many years to come.
The internet has changed the way we live our daily lives. It changed the way we socialize and has impacted the way we communicate. In the New York Times article, “Addicted to Distractions” by Tony Schwartz, it discusses how the author realized that his addiction to the internet prevented him from creating personal goals that will benefit him. For example, our author found himself one evening reading the same paragraph repetitively before concluding that he just can’t simply focus on the content of the book. This horrified the author because he once found pleasure in reading books, and now instead of reading them he finds himself spending countless hours on the internet.
Our way of thinking is beginning to change to the way that computers do. Advancements are made everyday. These new advancements are attempting to make life in general easier for everyone. Nicholas Carr makes the claim that, “as the internet because our primary source of the information it is affecting our ability to read books and other long narratives.” Carr suggests that using the internet is altering the way that our minds operate.
The internet was originally created in order to advance human society and to make information more accessible to others. Originally created as a resource to share classified information, it has now grown into a widespread network that transports arbitrary information across multiple platforms. This creation brought new forms of communication and interaction to the public. While this resource has produced several benefits, it has also had a detrimental impact on the lives and the intelligence of many members of society. The internet is making people less intelligent because it weakens one’s ability to understand information, to create meaningful relationships, and is contributing to a decrease in intelligence.
The article “Mind Over Mass Media”, written by Professor Steven Pinker, describes the impact of media on human lives and brains. Pinker illustrates the benefits people gain from using the worlds quickly increasing technology and media. Pinker suggests that today’s technology such as, PowerPoint, Google, and other forms of social media can actually enhance and bring more intelligence to the mind, instead of being detrimental. Critics believe that the many different forms of media can lower intelligence. However, Pinker declares that scientists are using all of this technology everyone else is using, and are still discovering new things.
The Influence of Technology In the essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr argues that utilization of the internet has an adverse effect on our way of thinking and functioning in everyday life. Whether it be reading a newspaper, or scrolling through Facebook, internet media has forever stamped its name in our existence. Carr explains to us that the internet is a tool used every single day in today’s society, but also makes most of us complacent with the ease of having the world at our fingertips.
Imagine living in a world without any internet. Imagine the amount of trouble a person would require to go through in order to find out the simplest things. The internet nowadays has become an essential part of almost every human being’s life. Cutting the internet off for just one day my actually leave the world in a state of commotion. Every type of technology may be used in either a way that benefit’s a person, or a way that may harm a person.
According to Lindsey Craig in her article “Technology -- we all love it and we all use it, but how is it affecting us?” she stated that “Technology is making us more alone, because instead of interacting with our friends in person, we are dependent on using our phones or tablets. We start to compare
