The Mind Changer In Nicholas Carr’s article “ From The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains” he states that something in him is changing. Carr repeats, “That someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain...” (Carr par. 2). Carr cites these changes through being fidgety and being able to lose focus more easily. He goes on to state that he believes that it is due to spending so much time online. Being online is a key necessity for his job as a journalist, and has made his life much easier. Carr describes the internet as his main source for information, as he uses it for the news and for e-mails. However, Carr then dives in to tell us how the Net can shape us. Since it is our main source of news, the Net can shape how we think. He says that we want to receive information the way the Net distributes it, in a fast ever flowing stream. This is the reason why Carr contributes his lack of focus to the Net. Carr is not the only person …show more content…
Too often you will go into a restaurant and see a whole family sitting at a table just looking at their phones with a very limited amount of conversation. I have seen it with my friends when we go out to eat. There have been times where everyone is so busy on their phones that they won’t even answer the waiter. Technology in our modern world is also making us lazy in what we do. This idea is presented in the article, “ If a Time Traveller Saw a Smartphone”. In this article Tim Wu states, “Take away our tools, the argument goes, and we’re likely stupider than our friend from the early twentieth century” (Wu par. 5). We may appear smarter with our smartphone, but let me ask you this. How many times have you checked a simple math problem on your calculator or smartphone? I know that personally, I am guilty of this. We rely on our smartphones for so much that we could all benefit from taking a step back and examining who we are without
While his best arguments come from cultural criticism. Written text led to the decline of oral reading and television obliterated the radio. Every technology comes with it’s trade-offs, it just comes down to moderation. There is little doubt that the internet is changing our brain. What Carr neglects to mention, however, is how the internet can change our brain for the better. Computer games have the ability to improve cognitive tasks and increase visual attention. He doesn’t always address the good effects that the internet has had on the world. One of the better strategies Carr uses is switching his point of view from third to first person. He reflects on his personal life and how his life has changed in response to what he has learned. Carr shows how even he has his faults but, being aware of a problem is the first step to finding
Nicholas Carr gives a sense of unbiased in his work when he writes, “I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the database of the internet. The web has been a godsend to me as a writer” (394). Though this statement it is clear that he sees both sides of the argument and by demonstrating this to the author he strategically is appealing to ethos and supporting his own argument. In hopes of building credibility, he begins to write, “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. 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” (394). Granted that he writes this in the beginning of his essay he is trying to credit himself as a victim which helps him support his argument against the constant usage of the internet. Nicholas Carr is aware that without building credibility within his essay the audience will dismiss his points as uneducated and meaningless.
The internet is our conduit for accessing a wide variety of information. In his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Nicholas Carr discusses how the use of the internet affects our thought process in being unable to focus on books or longer pieces of writing. The author feels that “someone, or something, has been tinkering with [his] brain” over the past few years (Carr 731). While he was easily able to delve into books and longer articles, Carr noticed a change in his research techniques after starting to use the internet. He found that his “concentration often [started] to drift after two or three pages” and it was a struggle to go back to the text (Carr 732). His assertion is that the neural circuits in his brain have changed as a result of surfing endlessly on the internet doing research. He supports this statement by explaining how his fellow writers have had similar experiences in being unable to maintain their concentrations. In analyzing Carr’s argument, I disagree that the internet is slowly degrading our capacity for deep reading and thinking, thereby making us dumber. The Web and Google, indeed, are making us smarter by allowing us access to information through a rapid exchange of ideas and promoting the creativity and individualization of learning.
I’m scrolling through the articles on Snapchat and find my way across one with an intriguing title, I instantly tap on it. I begin to scroll further down only to find myself going through extensive paragraphs of information and suddenly this article that seemed so interesting became a bore. In Nicholas G. Carr’s novel, The Shallows, he argues the internet is creating more problems to us humans than actual benefits. Our social skills are starting to lack and our interaction with technology is beginning to heighten. Humans contemplative skills are slowly fading away due to our reliance on the internet to solve our problems. Technology is inevitable by humans, seeing that individuals use it in their everyday lives. Unfortunately, this is a problem considering the use of high-tech gadgets decrease in one’s capacity for concentration, contemplation, and personal memory.
Atlantic journalist Nicholas Carr confesses that he feels something has been “tinkering with his brain.” The internet, he fears, may be messing with our minds. We have lost the ability to focus on a simple task, and memory retention is steadily declining. He is worried about the effect the internet has on the human brain, and where it may take us in the future. In response to this article, Jamais Cascio, also a journalist for the Atlantic, provides his stance on the issue. He argues that this different way of thinking is an adaptation derived from our environment. Ultimately, he thinks that this staccato way of thinking is simply a natural evolution, one that will help to advance the human race.
Although the Internet has increased how much we read, it has deteriorated our concentration level. We are no longer able to read long passages and stay interested. We have resorted to skimming or finding a shorter version. It has also affected our ability to take an analytical approach to what we read. We no longer go beyond comprehending the information we take in. Outside of using the Internet to “enhance” our mind, Carr has also made the point that it is a daily involvement. We incorporate it in our everyday lives, because it is a source of entertainment or serves as some type of convenience for us.
Author Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google making us Stupid,” discusses how the use of the computer affects our thought process. Carr starts out talking about his own experience as a writer and how he felt like “something had been tinkering with his brain, remapping his neural circuitry and reprogramming his memory”(313). Basically, he is acknowledging that since he started using the Internet his research techniques have changed. Carr believes that before he would immerse himself in books, lengthy articles and long stretches of prose allowing his mind to get caught up in the narrative or the
Carr explains how the internet can distract us making it harder to focus on tasks. He explains how processing information has become harder. Notifications, ads, popups can make it difficult if you are trying to read an article or book (Carr 57). The internet has become the center of our attention (Carr 57). Carr is explaining how this is the reason why we are struggling to comprehend a certain piece of information. He adds in his article that scientists, researchers and educators have also noticed the difference in concentration. And in further detail, he explains that we fail to see the important information, thus affecting cognition. He says that the information we gather is not valuable unless we know the meaning behind it. Carr concludes with explaining that the more the internet evolves the less valuable information is to
These two articles are similar in the sense that they agree that the internet and computational objects are reshaping our brain’s structure by changing our neural circuit. By using examples from their personal experiences to identify a trend in technology use, the authors illustrate that the more we bury ourselves in technology the more we are unable to understand material which leads to loss of concentration and the ability to think for ourselves. As an author, Carr finds the internet a beneficial tool, but it’s having a bad effect on his concentration span. Carr points this out by stating “Immersing myself in a book or lengthy article used to be easy, now I get fidgety, lose the thread and begin looking for something else to do” (39). He is no
He states how he used to spend hours reading, but his concentration started to drift after two or three pages. He backed up his theory with stories from others who say they’re experiencing the same thing. But they still await the long-term neurological and psychological experiments that will provide a definitive picture of how the internet affects cognition. After a brief history lesson, Carr starts to incorporate Google into the article. He tells us about Google’s history and their mission.
Carr concludes his excerpt with the statement “I missed my old brain,” because he was once so active in his learning, but now with exposure to the internet he has become close to being the contrary. Successfully, does Carr create a stance on how the internet has had a negative impact on how a person thinks and learns, from trading away an “old linear thought process” in return “for the riches of the Net.” Also, Carr creates a point that if society continues in this new form of mind, everyone will become human HALs and turn rogue against
Many people walk and don’t even look up anymore. Riding the bus today has become a very silent ride. You have people listening to music, checking emails, statuses, and other social network sites. You can’t even get a simple hello or how are you doing like the old days. Even in classrooms students can’t put away their phones . It’s as if they can’t live without it. They are so attached and fascinated by people’s tweets or Facebook posts that takes their focus away. Mainly the reason why many students fail a class is because if your teacher sees you using your phone, it shows that you are not serious and your focus is not there .We have something called self-control and if our society learns how to put their phone down and live life ,they can realize the beauty around them .Technology wouldn’t take over our
Carr discusses the effects that the Internet has on our minds and the way we think, as well as the way media has changed. Our minds no longer focus. When in conversation with people we are constantly distracted by the technological advances our era has brought. Text messages, emails, pop culture drama has all taken over thoughts.
It is well known that smartphones improve everyone’s life. They not only give us support every second but also prevent us from being bored to death. Yet some neglect these benefits and argue that smartphones can ruin our social life, and that we should decrease our smartphone usage. In some rare occasions what they say can happen to sound convincing. However, we strongly recommend that you let it go through one ear and out the other ear. You should even try to be benevolent and help the minority of the population advance. Here are some reasons why:
Technology has make our life more productive in many different ways. One of the greatest invention is Apple’s products. It leads an evolution of tablet devices. IPad or IPhone can act as a textbook, laptop, navigation, camera, notebook, gaming devices and more. It combines all the other devices into one which allows to manage our time effectively. “This is not a simple proposition, since our devices have become more closely coupled to our sense of our bodies and increasingly feel like extension of our minds” said Sherry Turkle. They are becoming part of ourselves. Perhaps some people are saying technology causes laziness because we are relying more on a devices instead of doing stuff by our self, but technology are intended to make our lives easier. We are still doing the same thing but in a more effectively way. Human race are moving on, we cannot stay in an era where people are still using paper map to find out the way, sending letter through the post office. If there is a natural selection in Human Evolution, there is also can be a natural selection in human’s behaviors, inefficient behaviors are being eliminating.