...Stupid is as stupid does. “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.” (Carr, Nicholas “Is Google making us stupid?”) I have asked myself the question “Is Google making us stupid?” (Carr) a dozen times while trying to write this paper. For me, we are only as stupid as we give ourselves credit for, Google or no Google. When I think of all the things that I would love to know, I don’t blame the Internet, Google or the amazing strides that technology has taken over the decades for my inherent stupidity on certain matters. I blame myself, for not taking the time or using the resources that are amazing displayed to me through libraries, computers or the people who hold the knowledge within them. Google is not making us stupid, it’s just another thing that we can blame for our stupidity. Scientifically there may be valid points to Carr’s essay in regards to how people process information today compared to ages ago. Carr begins his essay...
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...Is Google Making Us Stupid? This article has a very strong grasp on effective writing, in order to explain, you have to understand what effective writing is. What is effective writing? In simple words, effective writing is a piece or writing that immediately involves the reader’s interest and carries the reader through to the final paragraph with no loss of concentration. Some may call it a narrative hook, designed to catch a reader’s attention with a great title but, as the reader reads on they come to find themselves lost having no understanding of what they have just read. As I sat down to write this review I had to make sure the document followed certain guidelines. Is the document able to achieve the purpose it’s intended for and, is the document able to get it across effectively? Is Google Making Us Stupid? At the beginning of the article, the writer uses a very catchy hook to draw the reader. When you ask a question with such great magnitude the reader has a hard time not to investigate. The article then goes on to talk about how technology has changed how we process information and, how we stop using our brains and traded it in for a computer. Technology today is far more advanced than it has been in the last 20 years and it will continue to advance further more in the following years. When reading this I began to question myself, is technology making me stupid? Looking over the past years at how much things have changed, I am inclined to agree that technology...
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...it. Some of the change maybe good and some bad. The Internet has brought a lot of information to us that is now easily accessible. With the help of Google and smartphones, the Internet is accessible almost anywhere and we can find answers quickly. In Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making us Stupid?” He discusses how he believes Google and the Internet is making us change. “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.” (Carr). The Internet along with all it’s magnificence has also changed the way we think and put our brains on cruise control. Ultimately, I agree with most of what Carr says in his writing. I don’t necessarily believe that Google is making us stupid, but I believe that Google is changing the way we think. I myself have almost always had Google avaliable to me. In Middle school, when I first began writing papers and doing research I was also required to have a few sources but at least one would have to be from a book reference as well. This only lasted a couple of years til I reached High School and was only using the Internet for resources. After that I never needed to use a book for research ever again. I believe this molded my brain. I was able to find the information I needed instantly with no deep thought needed. I did not need to read through a whole book to find excerpts or the correct research. I could just skim through a page of search results, then skim that page I got from the results and find exactly...
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...As technology becomes more a part or ours daily lives: We have to ask ourselves, is it hindering us or helping? This is not an easy question, and is a great debate in today's society. More specific, an article by Nicholas Carr “Is Google Making Us Stupid” argues that exact point. Throughout the article it gives many examples of how Google is hindering our knowledge. Nicholas Carr makes the reference about how he used to dive into textual evidence while researching a topic and now it feels as if he is just skimming the top information. This is later proven in a study conducted by scholars from University College London scholars from University College London Furthermore, as a result of technology they that it has altered reading habits and Carr...
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...Is Google Making Us Stupid Vera Simpson ENG140 Feburary 12, 2012 Is Google Making Us Stupid In the Atlantic Magazine, Nicholas Carr wrote an article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Carr poses a good question about how the internet has affected our brain, by remapping the neural circuitry and reprogramming our memory. Carr states, "My mind isn't going-so far as I can tell-but it's changing. I'm not thinking the say way I used to think." Carr went on farther, saying that he cannot read as long as he used to, his concentration starts to wonder after two or three pages. He states, "he began to get fidgety and lose his focus and start looking for other things to do." Carr says this change is because he spend so much time on the internet, that as a writer, then he finds the Web to be very valuable to him getting information. Carr say to him and others, the internet is becoming a universal medium, that most information flows through your eyes and ears and into your mind. Wired's Clive Thompson says, "the net seems to be doing is chipping away the capacity for concentration and contemplation, that the mind now expects to take in information the internet distributes it; in a swiftly moving stream of particles." He uses for an example, "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." The reason he says this is because why searching the internet we tend to just skim from site to site and to never return back to the same...
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...phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it’s a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking- perhaps even a new sense of self”(Carr, P.g 2). The article “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the internet is doing to our brains”, is an interesting article written by critically acclaimed author Nicholas Carr. Nicholas Carr speaks upon how the internet is losing one's ability to concentrate on large physical texts or regular literature, and trading this ability for quick, to the point, internet articles and information. But this trade off is considering as without the ability to concentrate on literature, ones ability to critically analyze and have deep, thought provoking thoughts on what the person has read is suffered immensely. The main thesis that Nicholas Carr demonstrates throughout the article is “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy in a Jet Ski.” ( Carr. P.g 1). Nicholas Carr’s thesis explains that before we were all introduced and influenced by the internet, we were able to understand the physical text in front of us. We were able to have deep, critical thoughts that almost felt like an adventure. But now, do to the Internets speed and wealth of information, we don’t seek that adventure anymore. It is about (now) being able to quickly rush the reading and literature without understanding what is presented to us. Nicholas...
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...multiples readings of Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, I found that he is writing from his own person experiences as well as what he deliberates, contemplates, and gets from other significant opinions and/or research. He has a major point that he makes very clear in his text. There are also several indented points that Carr points out. I want to point out that some of the statements made by Carr went through my thoughts as it was exactly what I was having trouble with, myself. He states in the beginning of his text that he starts to notice that rather than actually reading, we begin to speed-read over text. I find his statement somewhat true being it is what I found myself doing the first time I read Carr’s text. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” clearly expresses that the internet is not only distraction to our minds but that it could be allowing us to depend upon the internet more than classic research. Carr used many examples that allowed his claim to stand tall. He referred to the watch, the television, email, the steam engine, and many other modern technologies but Google and the internet being his key points. Carr is writing this essay as persuasive but informative. “If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them with “content”, we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture.” (Carr) The text also displays sub-claims that I found to be interesting. He believes that even though we may break the habit of the internet or electronics...
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...Kristyna Pavlickova WR 098 Professor Finlayson 04/05/2012 Is internet really making us better off? Comparing Diana Schaub’s “Unfriending Friendship” and Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nowadays it can be considered a general fact that the internet helps people in various ways, not only at work, but also in their personal lives. Most people see the internet and social networks as an enormous asset to their everyday life. However, according to Diana Schaub in her essay, “Unfriending friendship,” and Nicholas Carr in his essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” the internet and social media also causes negative effects on our everyday life. Even though these two essays, both written around the year 2010, have different topics and there are certainly differences in the authors’ writing styles, they still have some similarities. These two essays share a similar theme: that the internet and social media diminish our human capabilities to think and make friends. Some differences occur in how Carr and Schaub approach their readers’, one author uses personal examples and the other shows differences in word meanings. In Carr’s article, he includes his own examples to show readers how the internet has changed his capability of reading longer texts; now his attention span has greatly decreased because he is used to short style of text on the internet. At the beginning of Carr’s essay there is a short part of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Oddyssey which Carr uses to...
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...In this essay by Carr Nicholas “ Is Google Making Us Stupid” and published by The Atlantic in JULY/AUGUST 2008 ISSUE. Carr’s main point in his essay is that internet is making us dumb. He states, “ The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing” (Carr 315). I may agree with his argument but also i would also have a disagreement because internet does help in many cases but not all the time. Many people use google to find what they want, although we may feel like google is the answer to everything. Sometimes that goes to show that we as a society are so use to technology that we don’t even bother trying to look for an answer reading a book. Using the internet “Google” also has advantages, making a research much faster than going to the library reading books all day. Carrs points out how he used to read long articles with no problem. Now he can’t anymore he says “Now my concentration often starts to drift two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread,...
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...Pamela Carvalho Flavia Tamayo English 101 January 23rd 2016 The Internet is Not Dumbing Us Down Nicholas Carr, the technology writer laments the rise of the internet in our lives in his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” published in 2008. Carr compares reading on the internet with the printed version and comes into the conclusion that reading through the internet is basically the shallower form of reading. Starting his article describing his problems by describing new technologies to be “chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplacing”.(Carr 236) Because of the internet, he is unable to keep his focus on reading any books or long articles. Therefore, affirming that the long term use of the internet is harmful for concentration and contemplation, consequently affecting people to become dumber and digitals fools. Fortunately, that is not true. Internet is not making people dumb, it has rather changed the object of focus. Knowledge now is moving from one room to the hyperlink medium, from content to connections and from libraries to network. In other words, it is not wrong to say that we are in fact truly getting smarter with the increadible amount of informations available in the internet. Nicholas Carr says that from the past few years, he has been feeling an uncomfortable sense that his way of thinking when reading has changed with the excess use of the internet, claiming: “My mind now expects to take in information the ...
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...“Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and “Connectivity and Its Discontents” In the articles, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and “Connectivity and Its Discontents” the main core topic of both articles is conveying that the internet is the first place we go to for information. The authors study has shown it affects our way of reading books, articles and research papers. Even though this process may offer knowledge is accurate, it shortens our brain’s learning ability in its process. The first thing Carr addresses is that there is a problem with technology getting way over our heads. He states it is difficult for him to comprehend anything he is trying to read, “The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle” (Cam 2). In this particular article Cam compares how our mind is changing with computers are getting into people’s minds like how time affected us back then. He describes how before the internet, clocks people did things by impulse. He provides example like how people could sleep when they were tired and eat when they were hungry, but after the invention of the clock, people suddenly had certain time intervals to do certain things. “Connectivity and its Discontents” by Sherry Turkle is an article that expresses the unfavorable impacts of the social network and technology in general. Turkle provides us with an example of a conference with its audience having the ability to video call during presentation and socializing. A person could be with a group of people...
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...Some stories are good for just one time read and some leave a great impact on how you think. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by NICHOLAS CARR and “Java Man” by MALCOLM GLADWEL are one of those impactful stories. These two stories share some similarities along with some differences. Both authors have a very similar approach on the idea of how the world is depending on other substance such as the “internet” and “Caffeine” way more than it should. However, the two story may differ with each other, the audience of each story may differ. Carr and Gladwell take different approach towards how a human mind was meant to operate. As a cultural analysis, both stories focus on how people are relying or depending more on other resources in order to be productive and be able to prosper. In “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” the idea of people using the internet way too much is mentioned because people believe...
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...Introduction When was the last time you held still and read the same book or article for thirty minutes, an hour, two? Living in a modern world means many great inventions filled with interesting information all at the touch of a screen. Anything a person can think of can be “Googled” and thousands of results will come up in a near instant; Google even helpfully informs how long it takes to retrieve the information. With so much material at one’s fingertips the possibilities are endless. In his paper Nicholas Carr addresses the issue, how much of this information is processed by the brain and how much do we surf past like a wave in the ocean? Summary In his essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” author and member of Encyclopedia of Britannica’s...
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...society out with making life so much easier. Although, some people don’t agree with technology helping the society, they actually like to keep things old school and do it the hard working way. Technology makes social life, work, and school so much easier. Yes, technology has its problems here and there, but technology was invented by a human and humans make mistakes. Technology is used to help our development in life. In the Article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” by Nicholas Carr has opionins of technology changing the way of learning. You see it isn’t just google it could just be the amount of time we spend on the internet and the assurance of the information that is given. Not everything on the internet is true. Being on the web is a quicker way of learning. People are saying that the lost the interest in reading because they use the internet, but you may lose interest yet it is up to you to actually push yourself to read. Google isn’t making us smarter or dumber, but we do use it to help us with a bunch of things. It is technically helping us get information on unknown things we don’t know too much about or don’t know at all. Everything on google isn’t accurate, but can help you get the accurate information you need. Google can help develop and stimulate our brain development of information. In reality there are pros and cons to the usage of the internet. Everything has its pros and cons. However, the way we use the internet can only benefit or tear us down. We need to...
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...Throughout many different generations, technology has slowly taken over our lives. The goal was to make life easier for human beings, which led to the invention of Google. Nicholas Carr wrote an article called “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” to explain how he feels about the Internet ruining his everyday life. In the article, Carr talks about how he cannot focus and eventually gets fidgety while reading a book. He continues on to say how no matter what, his life is surrounded by the internet and blames the Internet for not being able to read text as well, but then says that the Internet is actually a huge lifesaver. While using different rhetorical devices, Nicholas Carr argues that accessing information through Google has caused people to no longer keep focus while trying to read text. With the use of pathos, logos, and ethos Carr is able to make is point clear to the reader. In order to instill fear into the reader, Carr demonstrates pathos when saying, “The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive” (325). Using the comparison of the human brain and a computer causes fear to take over the reader. With Carr saying the brain is outdated, the reader assumes that the brain is being taking over by the computer,...
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