Nicholas Carr’s 2008 article in The Atlantic, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, argues that the Internet and access to vast amounts of information is corroding the attention spans and thought complexity of the billions of Internet users around the world. As Carr himself puts it, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” (Carr) He proposes that having many different sources at once will cause readers to skip around sporadically rather than thoughtfully consume information, and that Google has an agenda to cause this behavior due to their economic interests. Overall, Carr paints a cynical outlook on the prevalence in Google and any societal changes stemming from its use. David Weir’s 2010 …show more content…
Weir’s entire argument is based on the Pew Internet & American Life Project survey. This survey was conducted by the Pew Research Center, a well-respected, independent, scientific polling and surveying group. It consisted of “895 technology stakeholders’ and critics’ expectations of social, political, and economic change by 2020”. (Anderson) 76 percent of these experts survey agreed to the statement, “By 2020, people’s use of the internet has enhanced human intelligence; as people are allowed unprecedented access to more information they become smarter and make better choices. Nicholas Carr was wrong: Google does not make us stupid.” (Weir) This scientific data is completely detrimental to the argument make by Carr in The Atlantic. Weir goes on to highlight three key expert perspectives submitted in the survey and concludes by hyperlinking to the survey so that the reader can study further into the matter. In stark contrast, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” makes no use of any concrete data related to the subject. To be fair, however, Carr does point out this weakness by stating, “Anecdotes alone don’t prove much. And we still await the long-term neurological and psychological experiments that will provide a definitive picture of how Internet use affects cognition.” (Carr) He does mention one expert, Maryanne Wolf, who believes that “[we] are how we read” and reading online makes us become “mere decoders of information” (Wolf qtd. in Carr), but other historical points are made citing experts and examples from 1882, 1911, 1936, 1976, and 1982, all of which are irrelevant to his central argument since they come from an age where Internet content consumption was not a reality. Carr is utterly lacking in any substantial logos and his reasoning typically draws on his appeals to pathos rather than facts. Therefore, Weir is the clear winner in his use of
The internet has made an immense impact on every generation since its existence as it continues to grow throughout time. Its effectiveness is prodigious; the internet allows people to gain information that once took days to retrieve it in a few minutes (Carr 1). Writer Nicholas Carr, in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, explains that the use of internet and technology causes harm to people and their brains. Carr’s purpose is to address to internet users that Google (or any electronic helpers) is making them “stupid” and lazy because it minimizes their concentration and willingness to think. He attempts to adapt to his audience, dedicated internet users, as he uses the rhetorical appeals to try to convince them of his purpose. However, this was not enough. Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” is ineffective because of his poor use of ethos and logos despite his good use of pathos.
In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, the main argument the author, Nicholas Carr is trying to make is to explain how the Internet becomes our only source of information. Carr is also trying to warn oncoming generations in how the Internet has affected our ability to read long pieces or to be able to retain information for a long period of time. Carr provides personal experience, imagery, and a professional analysis that is backed by research to hook the audience in and persuade them that in today’s society, the Internet is only causing problems rather than any solutions.Throughout the article Carr provides an abundant amount of rhetorical modes by giving examples and studies from different organizations . Carr gives an insight on the positive ways the Internet had influenced his life.
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.
The debate over the internet's influence on human minds has been long running. Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" article successfully defends both opinions on this issue. He has plenty of history on the topic and has seen much success in previous works. Carr uses his past to impact the present issue society is challenged with every day. With his background on the subject, Carr is able to establish credibility as a speaker before he reasons for both sides of the debate successfully.
In “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (2008), Nicholas Carr maintains that the advent of the Internet has produced a shallow generation of information customers who lack the ability to deeply engage with and critically think about a text. To support the argument, Carr draws on personal and historical anecdotes and one scientific study. The purpose of Carr’s article is to open a dialogue about the potentially adverse effects the Internet could have on humans’ cognitive processes. Carr establishes an informal relationship with the audience, who are generally well-educated, upper-middle class individuals. Because the audience is educated, they are very capable of critically thinking. However, Carr’s use of other rhetorical strategies disarms them and detracts from the dearth of logos. His essay is rife with numerous unfounded premises, poor evidence, and logical fallacies. Because of this lack of logos is in a way compensated by including numerous appeals to ethos and pathos, the audience is likely to find the article persuasive unless they re-read the article deeply with a critical lens.
There comes a point where man simply stop searching for the answers themselves. It becomes too tedious to put in effort, They want the simplicity that comes from someone or should I say something giving them the answer this is taking the intellectual ability away from mankind and Nicholas Carr a writer tells about that in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Published in The Atlantic. In this article car explain how the internet has not only affected his reading capability but others as well by affecting concentration while reading. Carr tries to reach different drawings of people from people who read The Atlantic to those who simply use the internet, Carr is trying to inform these people that Google is having a negative effect on society. Nicholas Carr successfully uses the rhetorical appeal of logos to convince his audience that the internet may be making society dumb.
Technology, especially the Internet, makes humans’ life easier and more effective. A quick access to information brings people a huge opportunity to explore the world and develop them. However, Nicolas Carr, in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” argues that technology affects people’s life, it changes their mind and actions, and humans start to lose abilities of “deep thinking and deep reading”, which are essential skills of being humans. In other words, our world becomes more simplified that people are unable to be smart and creative as they were in the past. For him, today’s people think and act in the frame of programmed world of the Net. Moreover, although Carr worries that the Net based corporations, such as Google, are seeking to replace human’s
I recently read Mr. Nicholas Carr's article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, and I must say I do agree with Carr somewhat, but I strongly disagree. In the beginning of the article, Carr states that a few years ago he could read in-depth and for pages on an Internet article. Now, he says, that he cannot help but “skim” through an article in seconds; he feels that Internet search engines like “Google” (I list it specifically hence the article's title) make information so very accessible and immediate that it damages his reading. Although I can sympathize for him, I can not say I empathize because I am a different person with a different way of reading and thinking.
In a society where computers are used on a daily basis, is there a chance that Google is affecting our minds in a negative way? Nicholas Carr, who has written many articles on technology, business, and culture, argues that the use of Google is steadily making us less intelligent. Although, in most aspects most people may agree with what Carr is saying, but where is the experimental evidence that shows if Google is actually making us stupid? The argument that Carr presents in "Is Google Making Us Stupid" is difficult to fully side with considering he fails to present actual evidence, while relying only on his assumptions from his own experiences, and the viewpoints of other writers.
Is Google making us stupid? Nicholas Carr posed the question via “The Atlantic” in 2008 and received an uproar of feedback. His argument was that the internet might have detrimental effects on cognitive capacity. The article in itself, according to online critics, was targeted more at the World Wide Web than at Google, specifically. Throughout the six page piece, he argued that reading on the internet is a shallower comparison to putting your nose in a book. Since then, the topic has been widely debated.
In the essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” by Nicholas Carr argues that google is indeed making us stupid. Carr first introduces his argument stating: “the more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing,”(Carr 315). But right after introducing his personal opinion, he mentions the opinions of other bloggers and scholars that think the internet has indeed had that effect on them. But, in order to order to prove his argument, Carr relied on evidence derived from studies and by relating what google is doing to us now to what occurred in the past.
Nicholas Carr answers the question “Is Google making us stupid,” with claims and evidence from other individuals who have noticed a difference in their own reading, writing, and interpretation skills after spending too much time on the internet. Scanning quickly through online articles and skipping from link to link is what is leading individuals to a lack of deep reading and thought, as oppose to actually understanding and interpreting the text. By using other individuals personal experiences and evidence regarding the issue, Carr constructs the argument that Google, is indeed, making us stupid.
With the fast-paced development of technology, internet plays a more and more important role in our life. While acknowledging the convenience provided by the internet, Nicholas Carr expressed his concern that it negatively influenced our capability of deep reading and thinking in his article Is Google Making Us Stupid? Published in the 2008 issue of the Atlantic. However, there existed some weaknesses in his arguments due to the use of overstated pathos, inappropriate examples, and faulty logics, which to some extent hurt his persuasiveness.
What you think you become”-Buddha. If we can’t think critically for ourselves without Google then what are we? As newborns our minds are in the early stages of development and are unable to read or comprehend. To quote Nicholas Carr’s 2008 article, Is Google Making us Stupid, “We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into language we understand” Whether you’re reading a textbook, a comic book, or diary we process these words into thoughts, ideas, and information. We often absorb information from these sources at libraries, a quiet room, or on our commute to school and work. Even though Google has dominated the way we retrieve information they’re individuals who prefer retaining information from a
How many times have you heard your parents exclaim to you, “You’re not paying attention because your always on your phone!” I have been accused by this quote more than enough times I’d like during my lifetime, but Google isn’t making me lose focus or getting distracted. As most people believe, Google is making our society crumble because it is making us stupid. But actually, that isn’t the case. Google, the famous search engine used by many, is used to research information on someone or something. Although many may disagree, it is clear that Google is not dumbing us down because Google can open our eyes to new things and it can unleash our creativity.