Essay
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
In a world filled with so many new technologies that try to make an average humans life easier; there are bound to be downfalls. Nicholas Carr is a writer who always used to love getting caught up in books and researching information. Things have changed though. He’s noticed that he loses concentration while reading and finds himself forcing his attention back to the book just after three pages. Carr believes there is one thing to blame; the internet. People are just looking for at most three paragraphs to answer their questions. That’s why the world of web research has taken off. People are now getting lazier and only want their questions answered and that’s it. While I read Nicholas Carr’s essay I couldn’t help but analyze it. There were four things that I did while analyzing. The first is separating the facts and opinions of Nicholas Carr. After that I identified the evidence. Following, i identified the cause and effects. Finally I went on to describe the tone of the essay.
While reading Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, I found many facts and opinions. It is very important in analyzing writing to know the difference between the two. If you do not know the difference you may believe something that shouldn’t be, or even become confused about the topic. I found in Carr’s essay that there was a abundant amount of opinions. Normally I would not consider this a solid read; but the way he did and facts I found very important. Carr’s bottom line opinion was that the internet is making all of us not think as much and just search for a quick answer to everything. The way Nicholas put in examples of other technologies that have changed the way people think and live back up his theory on the internet. One technology that Carr points out that changed the way we lived is the clock. “The clocks methodical ticking helped bring into being the scientific mind and the scientific man. But it also took something away. As the late MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum observed in his 1976 book, Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation, the conception of the world that emerged from the widespread use of timekeeping instruments “remains an impoverished version of the older one, for it rests on a rejection of those direct experiences that formed the basis for, and indeed constituted, the old reality.” In deciding when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock” (Carr). By Carr stating this I think he very strongly backs up his opinions. If a clock can change the way we think and live just think about the way the internet has changed us and what it can do as technology advances more. I can distinguish between Carr’s facts and opinions because his facts are all backed up with research, and experiments done by mostly universities and scientists.
The next step in analyzing a article is identifying the evidence and the arguments presented. There were three main arguments that stood out to me as the reader. Carr’s first argument to me was the way every source is now creating shortcuts to make readers more interested. Many magazines and papers are now including summaries in their work. “When, in March of this year, The New York Times decided to devote the second and third pages of every edition to article abstracts, its design director, Tom Bodkin, explained that the “shortcuts”would give readers a quick “taste” of the day’s news”(Carr). With this being said it just points out that the worlds is getting lazy and are relying on shortcuts; so different media’s have to play by the new media rules. Another Argument of Carr’s that stood out to me was “The internet is a machine designed for the efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information, and its legions of programmers are intent on finding the “one best method””(Carr). This just points out that the creation of the internet was to create a
