The Importance Of Technology

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.

In his essay, “Is Google Making us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr discusses societies dependence to easily accessible information. Since the inception of the internet and search engines, information has been accessible to us instantly. Although instant access to information is a desirable advancement in technology, it comes with questionable consequences. From his own personal experience, Carr explains that since this invention, his brain feels as if it has been tinkered with. Carr explains that his brain does not work the way it used to, that it’s very hard for him to become engrossed in books, articles, or essays. As he continued to try to become engrossed in these readings, he found that his thoughts would wander and he would become restless after just a few

It’s hard to believe that Google began as a small online search engine created by two college students in a dusty garage, which eventually developed into one of the most prominent companies in the world. It started in California in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, two individuals who aspired to collect the world 's resources in an organized manner, making it universal and accessible for all. Programs like Google expose users to an infinite amount of material, allowing individuals to process information at an unprecedented rate. With just a click of a button the World Wide Web makes this possible, but are we truly aware of the side effects it may have on our brains? The New York Times best seller, Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing to our Brains explores how the Net shapes the way our minds think. He argues that the medium to which information is presented can be more influential than the content itself, thus corrupting the minds of individuals in ways that society may or may not be aware of. Carr also implies that the Internet is making individuals incapable of reading deeply, specifically with long pieces of writing, which essentially affects a person’s capacity to concentrate and analyze information. Through Carr’s personal experience with technology, we also get an understanding of the roots of his ideologies.

There is no denying the incredible library of knowledge the internet has made readily available for all to use. Having such a resource is transforming modern society in many ways, as it brings insight and news across the world at a moment’s notice, all the while enhancing educational and technological advancements. However, according to Sven Birkets, an American essayist and literacy critic, in his essay, “The Owl Has Flown”, it is not without fault as observations are to be made on how this new resource has transformed people’s intelligence and wisdom. The author theorizes that the large, almost unlimited, library that is now being offered by services such as the internet, reshapes the public’s knowledge. Knowledge is transformed to be horizontal or insubstantial compared to the much deeper lateral understanding pertaining to older generations because of the amount of time they spent dwelling on a much smaller set of resources. This observation made by Birkets in the late 90’s is expanded upon, and modernized by Nicholas Carr, an American writer and author, in a more inflicting and self-reflecting article for The Atlantic magazine entitled “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains”. Carr does not just blame the Google search engine in this claim, but the internet as a whole on how it impacts concentration and our ability to contemplate. These cognitive impacts are observed and explained in more scientific terms by Eric Jaffe, a regular Observer

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

Author Nicholas Carr poses the question “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” This has set off a debate on the effects the internet is having on our brains. Obviously the internet is here to stay, but is it making us scatterbrained? Are we losing the ability to think deeply? Criticism of the Web most often questions whether we are becoming more superficial and scattered in our thinking. In the July-August 2008 Atlantic magazine, Nicholas Carr published "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google). Like other critics, he sees change as a loss and not as a gain. The benefits of the internet are real and they are plentiful, but Nicholas Carr says they come at a price.

American writer, Nicholas G. Carr, in The Atlantic July/ August 2008 Issue titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” argues that the amount of time we spend online, especially google, has caused us to lose our minds by “tinkering” with our brains, “reprograming our memory,” and changing the way in which we process information. Carr’s purpose is to contribute to the idea that “Google” along with other online tools, is programing us to be less attentive and to the inhibition of our critical thinking skills. Guided by personal experiences, subjectivity, presumptions, Carr concludes that our reliance on google and other online apparatuses has caused us to become “machinelike,” claiming that the understanding we have of the world and is “mediated” by computers, flattening our intelligence and converting it into artificial intelligence with no value. Carr’s theory is un-logical because it is based on presumptions that overgeneralize the role that online tools like google play on our lives, based on the experiences and opinions of a few. By ignoring the complexities of these tools and the numerous features they have to offer which help enable us to expand our way of thinking and analyzing information, Carr incorrectly assumes that because the amount of information we are gathering and attaining from online apparatuses like google, that we are becoming hollow computer like entities with little to no intelligence.

Today’s society is more affected by technology than it ever has been and it is changing every second of every day. Advancements in technology have been changing our culture and society for hundreds of years; from hunters and gatherers to information overload to a future of the most advanced technologies we could imagine. These fast advancements in technology quickly change our society. This statement was greatly expanded upon by three people: Gerhard Lenski, Leslie White, and Alvin Toffler

Society has blown technology and its use out of proportion. For manifold a telephone is the first object they reach for in the morning, and the last they see before closing their eyes. Not only that but the amount of time spent using technology throughout the day is insane, “People spend an average of 8 hours 21 minutes sleeping a day – but spend an average of 8 hours 41 minutes on media devices” (Madlen Davies). People are using devices all the time, everywhere. Walking down the street odds are everyone has been in the position where they are physically run into by a person distracted by the electronic that's being used. Also during time that was previously spent socializing is now being spent engulfed in electronics. Family dinner time is being filled with heads faced down. Children are being ignored by parents to distracted by devices to pay attention to those around

Ever since I was born, technology has grown exponentially from everything like the internet to smartphone to virtual reality. Part of the reason why it existed is to ease people in their daily lives and I had taken a great interest in this field. As the curiosity dwells in my mind about what is the next technology breakthrough, it made me realize that this is what I want to pursue in my future career. My research about modern technology, however, was not always positive; according to statistics, as more advanced technologies are created fewer jobs for humans are necessary. Sometimes I wonder if the technology does more harm than good to humanity, yet this strange sense of familiarity, of warmth, that I experienced these past few years will never falter and beckoned me to spread this feeling to everyone else.

In a world where technology is constantly changing for the better, the effects it has on society seems to be worsening. My friend was traveling across the United States recently and when they were waiting at an airport, they noticed that everyone was on their phone. A room of approximately two hundred people and everyone was on their phone. Ten years ago, that room would have most likely been full of face-to-face communication and flowering with new connections instead of being silent and void. We need to spend time away from the use of technology and use that time to connect with others instead of being cooped up in our own worlds. Technology has caused people to be constantly distracted, stressed, diagnosed with sleep disorders, lacking social skills and left addicted to the many parts of electronics.

On average, one household has at least five internet-connected devices, with 6% having fifteen or more. Technology is everywhere in the world today and society relies on it for many reasons that better life. The fast growth of technology now has been advancing life more efficiently. While technology may provide some concerns, the pros outweigh the cons. Two important ways technology helps society are by improving education and creating more tools to help advance medical personnel and procedures to save lives.

Technology plays such a huge role in our life, but do we ever think about what it would be like without it? How lost would we be without it? It takes the adventure out of everyday life. We have become dependent on it for everything, from navigating where we want to go to delivering food without having to move. We rely on Google to “know” things and solve our issues for us. We use YouTube to watch other people experiencing life, but do we really experience it for ourselves. We do not do anything we are not comfortable with, technology helps us to feel safe and trust what we are doing. The first month of school I was not comfortable driving to and from school without my GPS, even though it is fifteen minutes away. While it does help us to

Technology has changed our way of life in a wide variety of ways. Everywhere we go, there is a touch of technology: starting from brushing of teeth in the morning to going to sleep at night. Technology has played a very significant role in modernizing and comforting our life by influencing our methods of thinking and communicating, our purpose of living, and by allowing us to go about the different processes of our day-to-day life in a more efficient manner.

As a society, it would be impossible to imagine a world without technology. It has become such a massive part of everyday life for a majority of people. Whether it is used for work, entertainment, social networking, or simply killing time, technology has continued to change, for better or worse, how things are accomplished.