Is Google Making Us Stupid
Michael
English 121.01
4 February 2013
Is Google Making Us Stupid
Nicholas Carr
Since the development of Google, there has been a vast amount of information available on various topics or subjects. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” explains and examines the different ways that the internet has been more useful and beneficial, according to the words of the author, Nicholas Carr. According to the readings, the author represents and expresses his thoughts and ideas using logos. Take for instance when Carr expresses that he once was a scuba diver in a sea of words, but now he zips along like a guy on a jet ski (Carr p. 534). Carr expresses that he once was a person who hardly used the internet but now he is one who uses it on a regular basis, making feels that someone has been tinkering with his brain, making it change. No longer does he enjoy reading a book of any length because he cannot sustain concentration on the book. Carr feels that all the time he now spends online is affecting his abilities to concentrate and recognizes that the Internet has been a useful tool for him to search for information and communicate. Carr notes that, unlike footnotes, links send you to the information rather than just refer to it.
Reading is not an instinctive skill the way learning a language is, requiring us to teach our minds to translate symbolic characters into the language we understand. Media and technologies used to learn and practice reading shape the neural circuits of our brains suggest that readers of ideograms used in languages such as Chinese develop a different mental circuitry than readers whose language uses an alphabet. These variations extend across many regions of the brain, including functions that govern memory and the interpretation of visual and auditory stimuli. It is reasonable to assume that circuits woven by the use of the Net will be different from those woven by reading books and other printed
English 121.01
4 February 2013
Is Google Making Us Stupid
Nicholas Carr
Since the development of Google, there has been a vast amount of information available on various topics or subjects. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” explains and examines the different ways that the internet has been more useful and beneficial, according to the words of the author, Nicholas Carr. According to the readings, the author represents and expresses his thoughts and ideas using logos. Take for instance when Carr expresses that he once was a scuba diver in a sea of words, but now he zips along like a guy on a jet ski (Carr p. 534). Carr expresses that he once was a person who hardly used the internet but now he is one who uses it on a regular basis, making feels that someone has been tinkering with his brain, making it change. No longer does he enjoy reading a book of any length because he cannot sustain concentration on the book. Carr feels that all the time he now spends online is affecting his abilities to concentrate and recognizes that the Internet has been a useful tool for him to search for information and communicate. Carr notes that, unlike footnotes, links send you to the information rather than just refer to it.
Reading is not an instinctive skill the way learning a language is, requiring us to teach our minds to translate symbolic characters into the language we understand. Media and technologies used to learn and practice reading shape the neural circuits of our brains suggest that readers of ideograms used in languages such as Chinese develop a different mental circuitry than readers whose language uses an alphabet. These variations extend across many regions of the brain, including functions that govern memory and the interpretation of visual and auditory stimuli. It is reasonable to assume that circuits woven by the use of the Net will be different from those woven by reading books and other printed