Rhetorical Analysis Of Nicholas Carr's 'Is Google Making USupid?'

Nowadays, if a young adult hears about a new terminology, instead of going to a library and looking it up in an encyclopedia like what his or her parents would do when they were young, he or she will pull out his or her smartphone and “google” it. Thanks to Google and all other information technology providers, the information and knowledge in this world are closer to the netizens than any other time in the history. In Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, more than acknowledging the great opportunities which Google has brought to him, Carr brings up his own concern that “the Net …is chipping away [his] capacity for concentration and contemplation.” He also points out the Net is reprogramming people’s brain circuits to change
In the beginning of the article, Carr writes that after he gets used to surfing the Net, he finds it is hard for him to concentrate on reading as long as he used to do (589). Beginning the paragraph with this personal experience, Carr not only brings up his argument that the Internet weakens people’s capacity for deep reading and concentration, but also he makes his audience reflect on their own related experience to understand his argument. The anecdotes help Carr set up a sitting for its audience to follow his logic better. After leading the audience to the setting and states his arguments, he introduces a research study conducted by scholars from UCL. The research shows that people exhibit “a form of skimming activity” and avoid reading long passage online (590). The research result also indicates that “there are signs that new forms of ‘reading’ are emerging”. By introducing the research, Carr intends to show that his argument is rooted from factual studies. As a result, when he summarizes the research finding on the emergence of a new reading pattern caused by the Internet, Carr verifies his argument that the way in which he reads and thinks deeply is changing because of the
Hence, the audience can only follow his logic flow rather than making a fair judgment by themselves. When he talks about Taylor’s idea about scientific management (593), he does not further explain how the idea led industry and a great many of companies, like Ford, be prosper in the 1920s and how various industrial products made by Taylorism changes public understanding of how an affluent life was like (). In fact, under Taylor’s scientific management, both the industrial structure and the living standard of America were improved greatly. Not mentioning how it helped America to become a war profiteer for the World War Ⅰ. Hence, the lack of further explaining the significance of Taylorism in Carr’s article could make readers misinterpret the achievement of Taylor’s idea and believe it is an idea that simply seeking efficiency and economic gains. Although he briefly mentions that “[he is] just a worrywart” (595), it is only a symbolic concession without any substantial weighing of advantages and disadvantages of technological