Is Google Making Us Stupid Nicholas Carr’s Atlantic Online 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”. Since starting to use the Internet his research techniques have changed. Carr said 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 arguments”(July/August 2008, Atlantic Monthly). Today Carr has found that “his concentration drifts away from the text after several pages and he struggles to get …show more content…
Indeed, he states in his article: “Anecdotes don’t prove much. And we still await the long-term neurological and psychological experiments that will provide a definitive picture of how the Internet effects cognition.” I could not agree more. That said, experts like Dr. Edward Hallowell, a Harvard professor and world-renown expert on Attention Deficit Disorder describes in his book “Driven to Distraction” the phenomenon of “culturally-induced ADD.” Different from the genetically based disorder, Dr. Hallowell describes this phenomenon as “simply an artifact of being too busy. When you get too busy you become distractible, you become impulsive, you become restless, you become irritable, you become easily frustrated.” Dr. Hallowell describes how culturally induced ADD, caused by the frantic pace of modern life, creates a situation where a person can not read long passages or focus, and, as Carr describes, does not or can not take the time to deliberate or contemplate. They seem to be negative changes. However the Internet enables individuals to spend more valuable time in the creative process than in performing the mechanical aspects of research. Only four decades ago, scientists would spend a majority of their time performing the laborious task of cranking out answers to mathematical calculation. The calculator and the computer have relieved them of this task and freed their minds to more deeply contemplate the
Although its intention was to nourish our minds with an instant unlimited source of valuable information, the internet has caused some people to lose their appreciation for long texts and their ability to concentrate. Within the essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, the author feels that someone has been tinkering with his brain and that he can no longer enjoy reading a book of any length because he cannot sustain concentration on the book (Carr 1). This is a result of the fact that when people use the internet to find information, they habituate themselves to skim along the lines to quickly allocate their answers and once they have gotten what they needed, they close the browser without any further analysis of the information.
Nicholas Carr's Atlantic Online article "Is Google Making Us Stupid," talks about how the utilization of the PC influences our point of view. Carr begins discussing his own particular experience as an author and how he felt like "something had been tinkering with his cerebrum, remapping his neural hardware and reinventing his memory". Since beginning to utilize the Internet his exploration strategies have changed. Carr said before he would drench himself in books, protracted articles and long extends of composition permitting his "brain to become involved with the story or the arguments"(July/August 2008, Atlantic Monthly). Today Carr has found that "his fixation floats away from the content after a few pages and he battles to get once again into the content". His reason is that since he has put in the previous ten years working internet, looking and surfing and composing substance for databases" his cerebrum hardware has changed. He shows that some of his kindred scholars have encountered the same sorts of changes in their perusing books and looking after fixation. Some of them said they don't read books as effortlessly on the grounds that their fixation and center has get to be shorter.
In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid” by Nicholas Carr the thesis of the article is internet technology is altering our thought process. His article was featured in the Atlantic in 2008. In the article, Nicholas Carr says that he is not thinking the same and he cannot read like he used to. Now he loses concentration after reading two or three pages. He thinks this is happening because he has been spending a lot of time online. People can find things easily with Google so they do not have to look for it as much. Before people had to go to libraries to search for information but now they can just look for it online. His friends and acquaintances also said they are having similar problems. He says the longer people use the Web the harder it is for them to concentrate.
In, “Is Google Really Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr (2008), he validates how people are heavily relying on the internet pushing for Artificial Intelligence. Carr also talks about how it is changing the way our minds work with negative side effects. He demonstrates how the internet may be shaping our thought process by giving observational examples as well as personal experiences. Beginning with his personal experiences he says how he finds it difficult to keep focused on a book, as a writer, this is rare to him. He tries to find a reason to his inability to stay focused and comes to a conclusion it is due to the internet. Carr is very persuasive in his article, although his point of view maybe seen as an opinion, he does show and support
I kind of agree with him, although he made some valid points. He said that people are not interested as much in reading and how he finds himself skimming through articles that are more than few paragraphs. I also do find myself skimming through articles sometimes when it comes to reading the article. When I was back home, we didn’t had access to internet and we need to find something or do research about something we would go to the library and read a lot of books and try to find information that was required for the assignments. We even had to write it down on the paper because there were no computers as well. But when I came to United State everything was so different I learned about computer and how we can find any kind information by looking it up. In high school, everything was on the computer email, homework assignments and even presentations. As time pass by I did started noticing the difference I started using the computer more and paper less to form my thoughts because I felt it was to much. For example, Fredrich Nietzsche, a writer sometime in 1882, Carr explained Nietzsche got the typewriter when writing was becoming a huge task for him, until him and his friend started noticing the change in him “Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” It made me wonder that how I use to think when I was back home. I did notice change in me, as time pass by I stopped going to the library and started using google for every little information that I needed. As Carr mentioned ““Someone or something has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory.” I believe that it’s giving us all the answers that we need without even working hard for it. When we need something, or don’t understand something, the first thing people do is look up on the google and I also use google multiple times in a day. We can find so much
In Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, Carr discusses the topic of Internet usage and whether or not it is affecting our intelligence. He begins his article by saying that he has begun to feel as though someone is tampering with his memory. Carr states that while he does not believe his memory is decreasing, it is also not improving. He believes that his concentration is not as strong, saying that he can’t stay focused on one story long enough to complete it, and if he does, he cannot focus on the plot enough to soak in the point the author is trying to convey. Carr tells us that he thinks that his diminished concentration is because of skimming articles online instead of reading entire writings for his research. He also
In the article “From The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing to Our Brains,” Nicholas Carr continually reiterates the argument that the Internet is altering how we think. “I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry” (Carr par. 2). Carr makes the point that he was always a voracious reader, but the fact that he uses the Internet so much for his job has changed the way he thinks and processes information. Over the course of the article he explains why this is the case. He uses the Internet not only for work, but for almost every other aspect of life including shopping, traveling, reading and numerous other activities.
A little bit about our author Nicholas Carr, he is a well-known American writer, interest in technology and culture. He has published books, essays and blog posts, his work “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains” was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist and a New York Times bestseller. He is also a former member of the Encyclopedia Britannica’s editorial board of advisors, he got an M.A., in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University. In “Is Google Making Us Stupid” Carr writes about the impact that the Internet is having on his brains as well as everybody’s brains, by giving himself as an example “I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has
In his essay, “Is Google Making us Stupid,” Nicholas Carr addresses the fears that many people share about the World Wide Web: that it is rerouting our brains, making it difficult to concentrate effectively. Carr uses personal experiences about his loss of concentration that has become more evident after using the internet. Rather than reading texts in-depth, our brains have become accustomed to skimming over information. Carr’s view on technology is that by relying on knowledge that we are being handed, we are becoming humans with artificial thoughts. He fears the internet could be a monster living in our homes. He is afraid of technology making us an indolent race. I think that the internet can make us lazy, but that doesn’t necessarily correlate to becoming “stupid.” Carr only focuses on the negative altercations that the internet has on our lives. Due to this, he comes off as oblivious to the transformation that we are undergoing with this new technology. The internet is making us change our focus from absorbing time consuming information. Instead, we have shifted our attention to learning information in a timely manner. Over the years, more ways to access the internet have emerged, opening up a whole new world for us. Instead of socializing and working in print, we are delving into a “visual world.” Alternatively, we are being introduced into being able to personally create, develop and consume information. Hearing information from a teacher is being substituted for
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
Nicholas Carr’s Atlantic Online article “Is google making us stupid?”talks about on how the use of the computer affects our cognitive behavior. He stated that many people do not use books, they would rather use google to find any information. Today Carr has found that “his concentration drifts away from the text after several pages and he struggles to get back into the text. His premise is that since he has spent the past ten years working online, searching and surfing and writing content for database. His brain circuitry has changed”(car,2-3). He is not thinking like he used to think
In the article, Is Google Making us Stupid?, the author, Nicholas Carr, examines the role technology, specifically google, plays in the lives of each individual and how this role is affecting the mind. He begins the article with an allusion of a scene the popular film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. In scene previously mentioned, the supercomputer Hal states that he feels his mind going. The author uses this scene to transition to his own experiences. Carr communicates to the reader that for years he has felt his own mind being “tinkered” with. The article goes on to state that the web is a blessing in that it helps save time and energy. Research, what once took hours and days, has been reduced to a matter of minutes. Carr’ stance is that the web has accomplished its intended job, maybe a little too well. The web has
Everything comes at a cost, sometimes a very high one and sometimes it is hidden. The advancements made in technology, for example, are great and they provide us with helpful tools, and help us to progress in different areas like production. However, it has some drawbacks like the way it affects us. It has not only impacted the way we interact with one another, but also the way we think and behave. Notwithstanding, the problem does not solely fall on technology, it also lies in our inability to disconnect from the virtual world and our inviolable wants. Many people take a stand on the issue and are either for or against the modern technology and further advancement, nevertheless the problem nor the solution is black and white but it is more complex than one perceives.
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.