In "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Nicholas Carr argues his deep concern on the use of the Internet and how it is affecting our brains. Carr feels like he has built upon the habit of skimming through articles for research. As a frequent user he has built such a strong habit of this that he can now no longer have the patience to sit down and read an actual book. For it lacks the instant gratification he is so used to getting from the Internet: "What the net seems to be doing is chipping away from my capacity for concentration and contemplation," Carr confesses. The Internet is changing the way its user’s minds process information. People are losing concentration easier than before and instead of truly reading material, they are skimming and mentally…
In his essay “Is google making us stupid” Nicholas Carr explains how the internet has helped us to gather vast amounts of information very quick, but also how it has affected our attention span when the time comes to read long pieces of texts. Carr also feels that our brains are constantly getting rewired due to the amount of time we spend online has caused him to lose concentration when he is reading. Besides, make it easier to find information and rewiring our brains the internet has changed the way we comprehend what we are reading. Carr states that before the internet he could easily get caught in the argument of what he was reading and that he no longer does it because his concentration starts to drift away after reading a couple of pages.…
In “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Nicholas Carr expresses his concerns on how the Internet is changing the way his mind works and how it’s affecting him in a negative way. Carr suggests that the Internet offers us the benefit of quick and easy knowledge. However, he goes into details about how we merely rely on Google that makes us process information differently from the past and how it’s degrading our critical-thinking skill. Moreover, he touches upon his own experience how accessible the Internet is with hyperlinks and flashy ads that can divert his attention from reading. With this, he noticed that his capacity on concentration for reading has been taken away. Carr proved that others have experienced the same thing that he did…
Sometimes, many people have been saying that because the internet is our issues and it make us stupid, people need to avoid using the internet. They say that using the Internet is negative with several reasons. Nicholas Carr is the one of them, who see the Internet as negative, and he authored a magazine article entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains" (alternatively "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"). Carr explains that the negative impact of the Internet on humans based on his experience and the opinions of other scholars. His main argument is that the Internet has changed the way people read and think, and the use of the Internet harms reading and thinking skills. His argument is, however, based on his…
In Nicholas Carr’s book, “The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing to our Brains,” he makes the powerful point that in order to assume technology’s power, especially intellectual technology, we must pay a particularly high price. Carr states this idea in one quote from his book, “The price we pay to assume technologies power is alienation. The toll can be particularly high with our intellectual technologies. the tools of the mind amplify and in turn numb the most intimate, the most human, of our natural capacities- those for reason perception, memory, emotion(pg 211).” This price for intellectual technologies can range from a lowered ability to pull up memorized information, a shorter attention span, having a harder time learning new information, or even a changed perception of our world. All of these points help show how the internet is affecting our brains physically and mentally.…
Nicholas Carr, in "Is Google Making Us Stupid?," conveys a message about what the internet is doing to human brains. Lack of focus and laziness are the new normal for human behavior, and Carr speculates what seems to be making humans disconnected from the world they are living in and leading them into acting like robots.…
"Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicholas Carr illustrates to me that the internet is slowing down the development of our brain. I agree with his argument that technology has affected out attention span, he sets an example of how we now cannot concentrate on the readings, Scott Karp, and Bruce Friedman, both agree that their ability to read long articles has been affected by the web. Also, I agree with Carr that we are becoming low thinking people because the internet gives us easy access to have quick information research. However, I think that Google and the internet are actually helping us to learn new information. It is because when the computers are not here, we do all things by hand. If you want to know what a word means, you would need to get a dictionary. If you want to look up something that your teacher mentioned in class, but you don't know what it is, or how does it look like. Then, you would have to find the encyclopedia to look for it. In nowadays, we do everything by computer, communicate with people, blogging, searching, watch videos, etc. We can learn new information quickly by searching from the internet. As Carr said, "It [the Net] injects the medium’s content with hyperlinks, blinking ads, and other digital gewgaws, and it surrounds the content with the content of all the other media it has absorbed. A new e-mail message, for instance, may announce its arrival as we’re glancing over the latest headlines at a newspaper’s site" (Carr 62). They take away our concentration, when we are reading an article there are lots of ads, hyperlinks, which would take our attentions. Thus, we will go to another website and look for other stuffs.…
In his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, published in the July edition of The Atlantic Monthly, Nicholas Carr argues that the constant use of internet and its advancement is harmful to the human brain. Nicholas Carr is an American writer who has written many essays and writings on culture and technology. Carr starts off “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by introducing a film scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey that shows artificial intelligence begging Dave to stop disconnecting memory circuits. Then Carr transitions into his own words stating that he can feel it too. He can feel the effects of internet. His brain cannot function the same way it used to. His neural circuitry has been remapping. He can’t perform easy taskings such as reading long literary works (Carr 2). His concentrations are always drifting. Then, he shows that he is not the only one feeling the effects, there are others that also feel the same effects. The author dives in more into the article with more evidence and presenting similar cases. He especially discusses that our neural paths are changing due to the use of internet and presents evidence for it. Towards the end, he acknowledges that he just may be a…
The most important and easily pointed out flaw in Carr’s writing is the somewhat cherry-picked evidence he cites constantly throughout his writing. This particular tactic is best summed up by Jonah Lehrer from the New York Times. “There is little doubt that the Internet is changing our brain. Everything changes our brain. What Carr neglects to mention, however, is that the preponderance of scientific evidence suggests that the Internet and related technologies are actually good for the mind. For instance, a comprehensive 2009 review of studies published on the cognitive effects of video games found that gaming led to significant improvements in performance on various cognitive tasks, from visual perception to sustained attention.” Lehrer pokes additional holes in Carr’s argument, citing a 2009 University of California, Los Angeles neuroscience study that seems to indicate that Google searches actually increase the activity in certain parts of the brain known to control selective attention and deliberate analysis when compared to text such as books. It’s hard to say whether or not Lehrer’s article is giving a fair view of Carr’s book, as the evidence appears to be fairly entrenched in the opposite camp. The issue lies with the fact that Carr has been fairly selective with the research he does cite, as he ignores any major scientific…
The internet is changing us.Absolutely. It is changing us to become quicker, more impulsive, more distracted people who probably aren’t very skilled at deep reading. And to most first generation people, such as Carr, this seems to be a huge apocalypse that is going to destroy all of humanity. Whereas, it isnt. Not at all. This is a change, perhaps an evolutionary one. But like most changesthat occured, the wide usage of the internet is bound to bring a new, exciting era of technology. Perhaps even, artificial intelligence. This is my first argument.My second is against Carr’s liberal usage of the term ‘ stupid ‘. Through his essay, he fails to explain the relevance of this term, so it seems as if it is carelessely thrown around. Knowledge is subjective. It depends on the era one lives in, where one lives, their field of expertise and so many more. Thus, people need to look at it as and evolution of ‘ knowledge ‘ as a whole and expiring from the traditional sense of knowledge which required an ability to read deeply and analyse lengthy…
The article called Does the Internet Make You Dumber by Nicholas Carr states that, “The Internet grants us easy access to unprecedented amounts of information. Growing body of scientific evidence suggest that the Net, with its constant distractions and interruptions, is also turning us into scattered and superficial thinkers” (1). Carr states in his article that the Internet affects people in a negative way, messing with their attention and memory. Carr also states how focused you are affects your personality, your memory, and your thoughts. One of the studies Carr looked at was conducted by a neuroscientist named Michael Merzenich. He said, “He was profoundly worried about the cognitive consequences of the constant distraction and interruptions the Internet bombards us with” (2).…
In his article, Carr is tried to explain how the internet has become our principal source of information, how it has affected our ability to read books and other long bits. Although this process may offer knowledge competency, in the process, but in the process, it reduces our brains learning capabilities. He takes a more hesitant tactic to how an amplified usage of the internet as a medium for reading and web-surfing has reduced our attention span. Carr uses a comparison of a jet ski and a scuba diver to describe how his reading has dramatically changed from diving deep into the words on the paper to now just skimming along the surface of papers and books. He believes that this is all caused by the Net and the way information is distributed.…
In Carr’s article claims that the internet has altered the way we process information. Using himself as an example, he is losing the ability to read for long periods of time. Carr then explains that this is partially due to the internet being a big part of our lives, constantly be bobared with information none stop, and constantly changing topic, which is negatively affecting us in shortening our attention spans. He then touches on the subject of “intellectual technology”. Carr then explains that this type of technology is essentially embody in us, using the clock as a perfect example “In deciding when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses, and started obeying the clock.” Another related…
However, in contrast to the other piece of writing, the main idea of the article Does the Internet Make You Dumber? includes numerous research results and might seem to be more credible. The author points out the division of attention and the inability to focus on one thing as the negative outcome of the Internet usage. The article provides the readers the information about the so called “visual literacy skills” and their negative side, which is lack of ability to concentrate on a single problem and the constant influence of distractions. Thus, the author leads the reader to an idea that the Internet activities of people should be reduced, and that the Internet has become a threat to further intellectual development of all…
Us as humans continually turn back to computers and technology to assist us with our informational demands of the current modernized lifestyle we all are living today. Technology and computers essentially provides us with an outlet for research and information that gives us a chance to delve deeper into topics for additional information. As computers and modern advances in technology becomes increasingly intertwined within our daily lifestyles, the question we must ask ourselves is, what are the negative impacts of our increased dependence of computers? Are computers affecting our intelligence as a society? We consistently resort back to the computer and technology for every problem that we may encounter which makes our brains and thought process able to relax and rely heavily on computers. Although computers at times can be very helpful and convenient for us, it allows society to decrease our ability to analyze topics, deliberate, and think critically. There are also many social media websites that have a huge negative impact and bad influences towards all age groups, especially targeting the younger users. As computers and technology continues to become more connected within our daily lifestyles, it is negatively shaping our way of processing and interpreting information. Essentially, the way we are currently using computers and technology is reducing our abilities and desires to think, be inquisitive, comprehend, and to retain information. So although the use of computers and modern advances of technology has rapidly increased, it has had a negative impact towards the current society and the generations to come. Today’s society has become so reliant on technology and computer use that we now lack personnel interaction and simple thought process.…