Is Google Making USupid By Nicholas Carr

In Is Google Making Us Stupid? Nicholas Carr discusses how the increase and development in technology has shaped the way we do and think about certain things within our society. He tells us how as a society we have grown dependent on technology and look to it for almost everything we may need. Whether it is for an answer to a question, advice, a sickness diagnosis or when we have to do research, our first instinct is to look to the world wide web. He links the fact that people have tried to create a more efficient work ethic within different fields when it comes to hands on work, but that ideology has also flooded into our thinking towards the virtual side. Society has shown us that it is acceptable to look to the web as our primary source.

328) In other words, he is saying as years have gone by our intelligence has grown to be dependent on computers and the web. Within the piece, Cartt discusses where the dependency may have first began, how and why we biologically become dependent on computers and the web and also how the web is taking away our ability to do simple things such as concentrate. One implication that Carr was trying to get across is that the change first started with Friedrich Nietzsche. He was a writer in the late 1800’s and in 1882 Nietzsche had purchased a typewriter to assist him in writing due to the failing of his vision and the headaches and exhaustion that came from staring and concentrating on writing for long periods of time. Carr explained how Nietzsche had gotten so good at using his typewriter that he was able to assemble his writing with his eyes closed. But, even though the writing process seemed easier a friend of Nietzsche claimed that he had noticed a change in the style of his

4deterioration of memory. Even Socrates came to the conclusion that as we would “cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.” (Carr 2008, p.326) Even though Socrates was not directing this thought towards computers and Google specifically, little did he know that this would occur to our own generations. Nowadays everyone believes “...that our minds should operate as high-speed data-processing machines...” (Carr 2008, p.325) A study that occurred at George Mason University stated that the adult mind can be seen as plastic. It is stated that “Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones.” (Carr 2008, p.319) The brain is able to reprogram itself in different situations. Since our society is constantly plugged in and online, this proves that our brain is always processing and then storing the things we see and read on our screens. But, as we continue to take in new information it becomes more difficult to retrieve the old information. Carr centers his article around Google and the advancements they have created within the company. Cade Metz argues in article on the Google Search Engine that, “In some cases, they can learn a task so well that they outperform humans.” (2016) They have developed this search engine to do most or basically all the work for us when we go and look to our world wide web for assistance. Eric Schmidt states that Google was created “to solve problems that have never been solved before.” (Carr