Nicolas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” implies that the internet is reprograming our brains, making us unable to enjoy deep reading. Carr explains that his mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Lately, he’s had a hard time enjoying books. Carr continued that many of his friends who are also literary types are experiencing the same “phenomena”. The more they use the web the more they have to fight to stay focused when reading long pieces of writing. Carr says that even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb.
Carr’s article introduced author and developmental psychologist, Maryanne Wolf’s idea that “we are how we read” and how she worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net (a style that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else) may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when earlier technology (the printing press) made long and complex works of prose commonplace. Carr feels that humans are losing their ability to read and think like they used to before the internet was so popular.
To prove his theory, Carr mentioned Google’s founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are set on turning their search engine into an artificial intelligence. In a 2004 Newsweek interview, Brin said, “Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.” Carr finds this unsettling because it suggests that the human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and bigger hard drive. To make his point Carr dedicated most of his article to examples of theories and...
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... were having a hard time engaging in long prose, why is the popularity of online books and audiobooks growing. It comes down to a matter of personal restraint. The internet is making us smarter and stupider at the same time. Smarter because the internet makes knowledge possible but stupider because we take the truth of that information for granted and quickly move on to the next best thing.
Works Cited
BIBILYOGRAPHY
Batson, Trent (March 13, 2009). Campus Technology. Response to Nicholas Carr’s ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid?’ http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2009/03/18/Response-to-Nicholas-Carr-Question-Is-Google-Making-Us-Stupid.aspx?Page=1
Carr, Nicolas (2008 Jul-Aug). The Atlantic Magazine. Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/
Anecdotes have become very influential in the forming of opinions. We often base our decisions off customer reviews or personal recommendations, rather than product labels or factual records. Though it is still important to cumulate and explore the proper avenues of information, it can be challenging to decipher between quantitative and qualitative data these days. Nicholas Carr finds an effective balance of anecdote and research in his essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” He begins to illustrate his theory to the reader by starting off with a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey where a supercomputer nearly kills a man. To accurately assess whether this connection is effectively executed, we must analyze the relationship between
In Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” the reader finds all three methods of persuasion, ethos, pathos, and logos in emphasizing his point that Google is possibly making people stupid; but it is ultimately the people who cause their own mental deterioration. His persuasion is a reminder to people of the importance of falling back on the “traditional” ways of reading. He also understands that in skimming an article one has the ability to retain what is necessary. Carr himself points out that in the past he was better able to focus on what he read and retain the information. However, now he exercises the process of browsing and skimming over information, just as many individuals have come to do in this day and age.
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 provides us scientific information that proves his point. ““We are not only what we read,” says Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University and the author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. “We are how we read.” Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged” (Carr 3). Carr gives us information from Tufts University, that contribute to his point. This information tells us that the internet weakens our capacity for reading. That is what Carr is saying, that’s the point of all of this. Carr wrote this so he can inform us how google in affecting
In composing “Is Google Making Us More Stupid” Nicholas Carr wants his audience to be feared by the internet while at the same time he wants his work to seem more creditable. Nicholas Carr uses many different types of evidence to show us that we should be scared and feared as well as his credibility. Carr’s audience is people who think like him, who find themselves getting lost on the internet while reading something, someone who is educated and uses the internet to look up the answers to questions or to read an article or book.
One for example is when he talks about how he used to be deeply immersed in readings and now after two or three pages he says “I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” (Carr, 1). Most people would look at the statement and agree. With social media prevalent in society today and with the length of articles getting shorter and advertisements constantly popping up it’s hard to stay focus on just one story. People only scratch the surface when they read now instead of diving deeper into the story. Carr argues that people’s attention spans have gotten shorter over time. But, it’s not only reading stories on the internet, it’s how we’re connected to our electronic devices. A perfect example is we’re always within arm’s reach our phones, ipads, laptops, etc. which can make people lose focus. When’s the last time you looked at your phone to look at a text or check Facebook? Was it 5 minutes ago or even 2 minutes ago? The things we can do with our phones is so technically advanced and Carr believes it’s taking over our minds in a negative way. This generation of children and young adults today are connected to the web constantly. An answer for something is always a click away, which can be a good thing and a bad
Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid” and Sherry Turkle’s “How Computers Change the Way We Think” both discuss the influence of technology to their own understanding and perspective. The first work by Nicholas Carr is about the impact technology has on his mind. He is skeptical about the effect it could cause in the long term of it. He gives credible facts and studies done to prove his point. While Sherry Turkle’s work gives a broad idea of the impact of technology has caused through the years. She talks about the advances in technology and how it is changing how people communicate, learn and think. In both works “Is Google Making Us Stupid” and “How Computers Change the Way We Think” the authors present
The argument that the web is to blame for making us dumb by Nicholas Carr convinces his audience that they might succumb to becoming braindead due to excessive online clicking. Hopping from link to link never fully understanding the content. While Michael Rosenwald points out that we are slowly molding the brain to only skim and search for key words to put together. With these two programed ways our brains work soon libraries and book stores will cease to exist. Or will they? Clay Shirky challenges this thought by saying that among the cat videos and conspiracy theories there lies true gold within the websites of the internet. The gold consists of scientific journals and a place to discuss anything and everything. A community to share ideas and culture. Has the internet changed your brain for the
If you find yourself skimming through pages, looking for bullet points and your mind wandering off, you might be suffering the effects of Google making you stupid. These are the things that Nicholas Carr talks about in his essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” was originally published in July 2008 in Atlantic magazine. Carr argues that the use of technology on the daily basis has made us unable to go into deeper thought about things. Along with the opinion of Scientists and other “literary types” he asserts that the web has indeed made us change the way we think. Power Browsing is the new way people are reading, this is where you look from title to title, surfing the web from link to link. Overall, he advocates that eventually our brains will
With the rise of technology and the staggering availability of information, the digital age has come about in full force, and will only grow from here. Any individual with an internet connection has a vast amount of knowledge at his fingertips. As long as one is online, he is mere clicks away from Wikipedia or Google, which allows him to find what he needs to know. Despite this, Nicholas Carr questions whether Google has a positive impact on the way people take in information. In his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr explores the internet’s impact on the way people read. He argues that the availability of so much information has diminished the ability to concentrate on reading, referencing stories of literary types who no longer have the capacity to sit down and read a book, as well as his own personal experiences with this issue. The internet presents tons of data at once, and it is Carr’s assumption that our brains will slowly become wired to better receive this information.
Stating that the scholars examined computer logs documenting the behavior of visitors who chose two sites that have several information outlets. The results showed that people showed a form of ‘skimming activity’, which supports him main argument of having troubles with deep reading (737). Further down on the same page, he states “It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of ‘reading’ are emerging as users ‘power browse’ horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.” This statement supports his pathos appeal of how the reader will be able to relate to it, including himself. Another pathos tactic would be when he states “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski.” A use of imagery to differ how he used to be able to thoroughly read a book, rather than now due to the convenience of the internet. An ethos appeal is when he uses a quote of Maryanne Wolf, an author, and a developmental psychologist at Tufts University, “We are not only what we read, though we are how we read. (737)” This is yet an additional credible support to his
Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid." July/August 2008. The Alantic Magazine. 20 February 2012 .
Nowadays people don’t bother sitting down and going through an article or book from page to page, because it’s not a good use of their time as they can get all information faster through the web. By examining the behaviors of computer users, both authors argue that people don’t really care about deep knowledge of what they are learning or reading. People want to know how things work or are connected in an instant. They feel that they don't need to critically think about the information to help get them along in life. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” supports this claim by citing a scientific study from the University College London were the researchers examined the behavior of visitors to a couple popular websites and found that people using the sites displayed skimming activity (41). The users of the sites did not bother taking the time to read the articles, but they instead power browsed, jumping from one site to the other and hardly returning to the websites they had already visited. In addition, the internet has made people accustomed to new reading styles that people don’t fully comprehend or absorb material. They read things for apparent meaning. Carr also says “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski.”
The following essay will discuss how the ideas in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, is expressed in the futuristic novel Feed, by M.T Anderson.
Is Google Making Us Stupid? - Magazine - The Atlantic. (n.d.). The Atlantic — News and analysis on politics, business, culture, technology, national, international, and life – TheAtlantic.com. Retrieved April 21, 2012, from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/