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…
This transformation, not in brain structure but in pure access to information, has given the average individual access to trillions of pieces of information available instantly at their fingertips. Researching subjects in the past involved spending hours in the stacks at the libraries. Now with Google listing immediately related articles and information related to the search, more to time is available to evaluate the information. Google helps save time by not having to search for answers in hundreds or thousands of pages in periodicals, newspapers and books. Carr reminds us that new technology impacts social and cultural behavior. During the Industrial Revolution the steam engine, gas engine, time management and more recently automation and robotics have created more efficient means of doing things. Once personal computers and the Internet were introduced with online services like Google and other social networks, users had immediate communications and the ability to spend their time to socialize. Today there are cell phones, I-pads, Kindles and printers that can receive wireless Internet service. The human brain may adapt by learning how to incorporate cyberspace into daily life and people continue to create and improve technology.
In my opinion, Google does not make us stupid like Carr suggests in his article. Google may make us seem lazy