Article Review : Is Google Making Us Stupid By Nicholas Carr

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

Technology has evolved so much over the course of 82 years. People who were living in 1935 would have no clue what a computer is or what it could potentially become. Education itself and how we learn has come a long way. Everything was hand written. Now in 2017, we have every answer with just one touch of a button. Google is a search engine that holds almost every answer in the world. There are many opinions on the way humans in 2017 function, and process information. Nicholas carr is a respect author who writes about the relationship between technology and culture. He has written for the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, etc. He has written two great essay that have won The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Best collected in Several Anthologies, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and The Best Technology Writing. One of them which is titled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid.”  Nicholas Carr argues that Google is not making humans stupid, but as technology progress our minds must adapt and change the way we think and process information. This essay has many rhetorical approaches. Nicholas Carr uses imagery, opinion, ethos, and pathos to persuade his audience, provoking a doubt on whether google is making humans stupid.

Sergey Brin noted, “Some say Google is God. Others say Google is Satan. But if they think Google is too powerful, remember that with search engines, unlike other companies, all it takes is a single click to go to another search engine.” Nicholas Carr’s essay challenges this assertion. Nicholas Carr believes even though there are multiple search engines, “the faster we surf across the Web-the more links we click and pages we view-the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements.” This topic elicits such strong responses because technology is a part of our everyday lives. Technology is only becoming more advanced and will continue to be a source of debate for all who use it.

Nicholas Carr in the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” argues that the more people use technology, the more it’s making people stupid. Throughout the article he mentions many examples where he proves himself correct. Google is making us stupid because it’s affecting our concentration the more we rely on technology.

Nicholas Carr is an American author who writes the majority of books and articles about the continuously evolving world of technology and how it is effecting our society. Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist and a New York Times bestseller. In this essay I will be rhetorically analyzing Carr’s essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid” published in 2008. The purpose of Carr’s essay was to bring light to an issue that many of us face but only a meniscal few have come to terms with; and that is that technology is mentally incapacitating our society and simultaneously making us lazy. This essay was intended for anyone was has been consumed in today’s culture by new technological advances to the extent of not being able to function without some sort of device, IE cellphone, laptop or tablet on a daily basis.

Over history technology has changed mankind’s overall culture. From clocks to computers the use of electronics and tools is occurring every day in almost all situations. In Carr’s article “Is Google Making us Stupid?” he introduces the idea how the internet is changing our lives by making us mentally process information differently from the past, based off previous changes in history. Carr explains how we think less deeply and rely on quick facts, versus using critical thinking and research. Also he explains how our brain is malleable, and may be changed by the internet’s impression. Lastly Carr talks about what the

In the essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Nicholas Carr expresses his beliefs and personal experiences on how the internet has altered our brains and how we think. He addresses the fact that, although our brains’ abilities to deep read and concentrate are suffering, the internet is extremely beneficial and convenient. Because of the easy accessibility, it takes little to no effort to find information, and therefore, a minimal amount of thinking is required. Carr highlights that people are more impatient because of the internet and that our minds are becoming more erratic. The author used research, conducted by a U.K. educational consortium, to show that a new form of reading is developing over time; rather than reading every word on a page, it has turned to more of a skimming method. Nicholas Carr realizes that we may be doing more reading than ever due to the internet, but it is different in the way that people have to interpret the text. Reading, unlike talking, is not a natural ability. One must learn to deep read, make connections, and translate the underlying meaning. Overall, Carr believes it is a mistake to rely fully on computers because in the end, it will just be our own intelligence that morphs into artificial intelligence.

Nicholas Carr in the essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” states “I can feel it, too. 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.” This quote shows us how people are being affected by spending too much time using new technologies such as texting. Texting really does impact the way people think. While students are in school, they tend to write some of their paper in text form. This is because they are so used to using their phones and using the short texting forms that they forget how to actually write. I had this happen to me before. For example, in one of my English classes I had to write a quick one page essay on a book we were assigned to read. I started to write and once I finished I felt like it was pretty good. So, when I went back to proof read it, I realized that half of my paper was in short text form. I could not believe that I had done that. After I corrected all of my mistakes I turned in my paper. I was so glad that I looked over my essay before turning it in. Also, students would rather be on their phones than learning in school. While I am sitting in class, I always see people looking at their phones and not paying attention. Texting in class could cause you to fail and you would have to take the class over

As the internet offers us the benefits of quick and easy knowledge, it is affecting the brain’s capacity to read longer articles and books. Carr starts Is Google Making Us Stupid with the closing scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey when Dave taking apart the memory circuits that control HAL, the artificial brain of the ship. Carr feels the time he spends online is rewiring his brain. He is no longer able to concentrate long enough to read more than a few paragraphs. Even though the internet is useful, it seems to be changing the way our brain takes in information. He feels as though this brain wants to take information in the same way the internet disperses it: in

Nicholas G. Carr has written an abundance of articles about technology. Some of his work includes: Does It Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage, and The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google. One of Carr’s achievements, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” smoothly persuades the reader to believe that the Internet is taking over the human mind. The article’s title brings a tough question to mind for readers. By using a familiar movie scene and arguments embedded with relatable analogies, imagery and metaphors; Carr casually and acceptably leads his audience to a reasonable

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

In her essay “Does Texting Affect Writing?”, presented on April 18th, 2010, Michaela Cullington describes the use of texting and how it effects peoples writing. With the suppressing matter in consideration of technology has had a mass effect on human society. Texting has the ability to send information within a short period of time. Using texting, communication has been a problem with talking face-to-face. There is a concern of absence with using full text of words and seems to be a continuous predicament and could potentially hurt the face of the English language altogether. The transition from face-to-face communication is a lost art with the advances with texting. Cullington provides factual evidence to support her claims to express the

Technology nowadays exists everywhere. It is in cars, in classrooms, and at home. Because of the increase in technology, interactions have slowly changed. The way people talk to each other is completely different when they are sending shortened text messages such as BRB, g2g, and ttyl. Technology also distracts drivers on roads because of the notifications that are constantly popping up on their phone screens. However, technology isn’t all bad. Technology has affected writing in a more positive way as it makes its users feel more relaxed, encourages writing for pleasure, and helps improve

We live in a time where when an adolescent complains about a headache or some kind of pain, an adult's first response is, “It's because you’re always on that phone!”. It’s a common belief that technology, such as social media and the internet, is corrupting the youth and making us less productive. Clive Thompson, in the excerpt of his book, “Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better”, asserts that the internet has had a positive effect not only on the quality of our writing but also on the quantity of writing in our time. Thompson supports his argument by first sharing historical evidence, then by analyzing statistics about the effects the internet has had on our writing, and finally, he describes personal anecdotes and expert testimonies to establish his credibility. The author’s purpose is to persuade the audience so that they believe the internet has had a significant impact on the way individuals express themselves through their writing. Although Thompson uses several rhetorical strategies that helped support his argument, there were also moments when his strategy worked against his claim. The author writes in an informative tone to his audience, the readers of his book and others interested in the topic of science and technology, and its effect on our times. The popular assumption is that technology has had a negative effect on society, by making individuals “dumb”, “lazy”, and “illiterate”. On the contrary, I believe social media, and

When it comes to writing papers and making sure people are using the correct punctuation and making sure everything is spelled right, it can sometimes become a stressful time in the process. With technology comes stress because you have to learn how to use it properly and what not to do with it. With technology improving as the years go on, people have started to question whether the use of texting has affected the way people think and do certain things on a regular basis that ultimately affects human’s writing skills in the process. In the report, talking about the issues that come along with technology, it stated that it was “taking over our lives” (Cullington, 2010, p. 1). Technology is increasing day in and day out, and the writing will only get worse. In an article it states “90% of school children owned phones, and that 96% used text messaging” (Plester 2008. P.1). The fact that more than ninety percent of children use cell phones goes to show that technology has rapidly taken over everyone’s lives. And this number will eventually grow to a full 100% the more generations are introduced with technology.