Review Of Nicholas Carr's Essay 'Is Google Making USupid?'

Brad Fisher
Professor Brady Bergeson
English 120
15 September 2014
The Internet- A Curse to Society For over a decade now, the World has relied upon the global Internet as a tool and means of survival. From looking up your favorite recipe on Google to checking your beloved sports teams score on ESPN, the Internet has served as a lifesaver to our existence. However Nicholas Carr, author of the short essay “Is Google Making us Stupid?” states that while the Internet may be a “lifesaver” it also has its downfalls. Carr uses personal stories and tells of his extensive research in the area to make his readers believe in his credibility. This appeals to ethos, combined with his friendly tone, create an effective argument for why the Internet might actually be making humans stupid. In the short essay “Is Google Making us Stupid?” Carr talks about how the Internet is messing with his mind and making him have a harder time
concentrating. Carr states that his concentration “often starts to drift after two or three pages . . . I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do (150)”. Throughout the whole short article written by Carr, he brings up countless experts and witnesses who can also testify to his belief that the Internet is not a blessing. The Internet has been open to criticism for years now and that trend won’t end anytime soon. As long as there are people who strongly believe that the Google and the Internet are making us stupid, it will continue to get criticized. With today’s technology this further complicates how the Internet is making us stupid. With apps making everything simpler on cell phones and tablets, skimming and skipping over things become much easier. This makes our ability to read full books that much more difficulty. Throughout Carr’s story, he tells many different stories of ways he believes that the Internet is making us people stupid. Carr tells a story of Friedrich Nietzsche, who was a blind man who used a typewriter to allow him to write again, at least for a little while. Because of this change, just like Carr tells in his cases, Friedrich’s style of writing started to seem to change. This was significant not only because it shows us readers how easy we can get changed by something we think is the best but also it shows how vulnerable we can be to susceptibility. There is much proof and evidence to go along with Carr’s point that the Internet is making us stupid. This is shown by Carr using the element Ethos to get credibility for is paper. In one of the opening paragraphs of the story, Carr uses ethos when he says “but a recently published study of online research habits, conducted by scholars from University of London, (152)”. This is a very strong case of ethos because of the fact that the audience knows this information that Carr is going to give is going to be true because it was conducted by college students and/or professors. This will then make the reader feel more comfortable with what they are reading hopefully making them believe in it more as the truth. There are two more very significant uses of ethos that Carr uses in his story to gain credibility besides using colleges. One is that he wrote his own book and wrote blogs on the matter to express what he thinks is happening in more detail. Secondly Carr talks about history throughout his essay and how it has affected the human population. When he is talking about it affecting the human population he means with bad affects. Another element in a rhetorical analysis is logos and Carr uses these in a variety of different ways throughout his essay. Logos deals primarily with the action of logic. One of the main ways is that Carr looks at things from history. This is best described by the story Carr uses about Friedrich Nietzsche and his typewriter. Carr used that story which was believed to be around 1882 at the time and incorporate it into todays technology and state how back then technology was also a concerning problem for man. Yet another way Carr shows the use of logos throughout his story is by what critics have had to say about technology in today’s society and how it is affecting us. He incorporates the critics same view which are that technology, and not just the Internet are hurting us in many different things and that it is alarming for the future. The last element is pathos and Carr uses multiple different ways to express emotion throughout his story.
One of the main ways Carr uses pathos is when he mentions Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 film: A Space Odyssey. Pathos are then later shown when Carr states quotes from the movie and the most significant when dealing with pathos is when Carr pronounces “Dave, my mind is going,” HAL says, forlornly. “I can feel it. I can feel it (150)”. This is a great example of pathos because of the emotion that is being expressed by when HAL is “feeling it.” Another major use of pathos that Carr uses is when he shows that he knows the world. What this means is that Carr has done so time studying the problem he believes is true that he can see it happening throughout the World around him. Carr also speaks about how times have changed into today’s World. What Carr means by this is that way back in time there wasn’t all of this technology to even make us humans stupid. But now with all of the new research and technology that can mess with our minds it can make us
stupid. To conclude, it was very obvious to the reader that Carr used many personal stories and had lots of research to back up his points about the Internet. As humans today we rely so much on the resources of the Internet for our everyday lives. Just know, as Carr may not be pleased with the way the Internet has turned out to be, many people are content. If you ever do feel like Google is making you stupid however, don’t stop using the internet, adapt to it.

Works Cited
Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" 2012. The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction. Ed. Linda H. Peterson. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. 150-59. Print.