Nowadays, the internet is the biggest marketing and media tool that people can use today. It can have various effects on people’s daily life ranging from bad to beneficial. In the essay “Is Google making us stupid” by Nicholas Carr writes about how internet usage in the 21st century is changing people’s reading habit and a cognitive concentration. Particularly, he emphasizes on Google’s role in this matter and its consequences on making people machine like. Carr also stated that the online reading largely contributes to people’s way of reading a book. He is extremely focused on the online reading’s distraction that most affects people’s mind. Findings: Furthermore, in this memorandum I will analyze whether the author used biased view, and …show more content…
Most of his supports are from official sources such as, the University of Michigan Medical School, New York Times, and even the example of British great mathematician Alan Turning. Looking at these sources, the audiences have no choice but to believe because they are internationally trusted know sources that are exceptionally believable. For example, he author pointed out that he and some of his colleague’s concentrations when reading a book has significantly decreased. Moreover, he thinks that the cause for this disturbed concentration is the modern internet usage, as he states “And what Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation” (Carr, 2008). According to this statement the readers can conclude that the main reason for reading concentration disturbance is the internet. In terms of the scientific research, the article provides the research by the British Library and U.K educational consortium which states “They found that people using the sites exhibited ‘a form of skimming activity,’ hopping from one source to another rarely returning to any source they’d already visitied” (Carr, 2008). From this statement we can understand that there are numbers of attractive information piled on one page, people have a hard time choosing which one to read, resulting them to skim and jump to one another. From these couple examples, it can be concluded that the author of this essay is strongly attempting to convince the readers in his idea of internet disturbing people’s concentration. However, the essay itself is extremely biased, because of the fact that there is no information about benefits of using the internet and reading online. Instead the readers are receiving information all about cons of using internet. Also, for instances, Carr failed to provide the reality of today’s internet
Is Google Making Us Stupid? Throughout Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, he goes over what he believes the internet is doing to our brains, and why it may be bad. To begin, Carr describes that he himself had felt that something in his brain was changing. He felt a significant change is his thinking, reasoning, and concentration skills, especially when it came to reading.
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.
Nicholas Carr claims his opinion on how computer and internet changed people’s way of thinking and going to turn people into machines in the essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid”. He states current situation that we are in a Internet era and his mind is not going like before when we focused on deep reading. First of all, the new universal medium Net reshape our process of thought, from concentrating on one reading to skimming readings. Although we read more, we did not completely understand it and made a rich mental connection with it. He talks about how Google’s value contradict people’s healthy growth.
Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” was published in an 2008 July/August issue of the Atlantic, argues a personal story of how deep reading for him has become difficult because of the distractions of the internet. Carr uses both personal experiences and the testimonies of others to argue that media is impacting the process of thought. Carr communicated with two other bloggers, Scott Karp and Bruce Friedman, and understands that his inability of not being able to deep read due to media alternating his thought, is shared by others too. A five-year research program conducted by scholars at the University College London observed the documents of computer logs and claimed that people are now beginning to skim or “power browse” from article to article instead of the reading in the traditional sense. Carr also admires
For example, Bruce Friedman, who Carr mentions, says, “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print” (348). This concludes that internet has altered his mental habits. He provides many evidences such as a few internet behaviors to let the audience to conclude about his points. Another example that Carr explains very well on how text on the internet is using fast and profitable. He talks about how the internet make other people money and how our critical thinking skills and reading skills are decaying in the process of using the internet.
In his essay Is Google Making Us Stupid, Nicholas Carr argues that our dependence on the Internet changes the way we read and think. He includes his own personal testimony to support this claim, as well as others’ descriptions, including several friends, and bloggers that Carr quote. While he lacks scientific proof supporting his claim, multiple testimonies support his claim that the internet has changed the way people think. However, Carr views this negatively, saying that “I’m not thinking the way I used to think… my concentration often starts to drift… I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text” (633-634).
Summary of "Is Google Making Us Stupid" by Nicholas Carr The internet has become a necessity for many people these days, it provides quick information and is a primary source of knowledge. In the article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid", the author Nicholas Carr, is describing the effects that technology has on the human brain. Carr begins with a scene from the end of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, where supercomputer HAL is being disconnected by astronaut Dave Bowman who was sent to space on a deadly mission by the machine.
Carr says, nowadays people are able to skim through information from the internet of which usually takes hours by book. For example,“Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. ”Carr also says, the internet has advanced by allowing people to skim through many different articles to find the right one in order to complete assignments and research. The internet has become a universal medium for many people.
Reading an ebook or a web page requires the same interpretation skills and provides a growth in your vocabulary, similar to reading a physical book. Online tools such as spell check, web dictionaries and thesauruses help to build knowledge and improve finished compositions, not tarnish them. This next generation is exposed to endless opportunity to search and discover humanity’s collective knowledge at their fingertips. They have to ability to read articles upon articles, and webpages upon web pages for pleasure on everything from poisonous spiders to the history of soccer. Why criticize an advanced way to gather information?
Carr opens up his argument with his personal struggle to focus on reading the text. Unlike the past when he enjoyed reading lengthy articles easily, he acknowledges that his mind constantly drifts away from the text and that he looks for something else to do. “I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet.... Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes… Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets”(Carr 348).
William Badke assessment of the article by Nicholas Carr “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” has a unique twist. As an associate librarian at Trinity Western University, he feels online search engines like Google or Yahoo restricts profound thought and retrains comprehension. Badke states “we can keyword search right to the best stuff without reading much of the book itself.” (online) He accepts research by Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan called iBrain, which submits the brain, adapts to the surrounding environment.
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.
In today’s society, technology plays a very important role in its ability to function, it helps people find information, communicate with others far away and provides entertainment. In “Fahrenheit 451”, a book written by Ray Bradbury, a dystopian future where books have been made illegal is presented. In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, raises many questions about technology and its effects on society. It’s quite evident that we have become quite dependent on technology due to our overconsumption of it.
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.
Everyone knows that reading is important, but have you ever asked yourself why is that so? Reading is one of the most beneficial and practical activities that a human being can do. Unfortunately it is a disappointment that people these days read less. As we know, books were the main source of entertainment centuries ago, but with the widespread of technological advances such as the cinema, television, internet, among others, many people left their books on the bookshelf. The purpose of this speech is to present the benefits and the importance of reading.