Technology is advancing to where everyday tasks become simpler with a click of a button. Search engines like Bing, Yahoo, or even Google allow people to instantly find answers that we are looking for on any topic. In Nicholas Carr’s article “ Is Google Making Us Stupid,” he appeals to readers’ emotions to describe personal experiences, uses logic, facts, and analysis backed by research to lure the audience in, and persuades them that the internet causes our brain to be easily distracted and shortens our attention span. Carr starts off the article by explaining how he feels the internet is affecting how he focuses on tasks, and how “he can no longer be completely immersed in a book.’’ But as a writer, he also finds the internet to be a “godsend.’’…
Yemisrach Reta ENG 121-340 Professor Ashley Waterman 2 May 2017 Rhetorical Analysis of the Essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid” In “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr uses some evidences in his argument in order to convince the idea of the other people . I believe Carr’s argument is effective because he starts explaining how he feels when he is reading a book and immersing himself in a book.…
One technique the author effectively uses is giving several examples that help to support his claim. First he speaks of an experiment conducted by University College London. The study, monitoring internet use over a five-year period, showed habits of skimming. This example was not only correctly placed within the article, but also supported the author’s theory of a society that needs short pieces of information. Another situation Carr uses in order to prove his point is the instance of Friedrich Nietzsche.…
Furthermore, he discusses the new thought of considering the brain as a computer, feels terrible for the loss of profound concentration, and the scholarly incitement it accommodates our brains. Carr’s theory of technology making us dumber…
The way he offered their ideas in an almost sarcastic way like he didn’t want people thinking; he would ever believe the things they do. Then at the end of the essay, he uses arguments and expressions like “pancake people” and “haunting” (328) to create images in the reader’s mind of the destruction that the Internet causing on our minds. Carr goes back and says “I’m haunted by that scene in 2001,” (328) because the computer appears to impress so much and the humans seem to feel so little in the movie. Just before that he says that he doesn’t think that “artificial intelligence” (325) can ever replace human intelligence because computers can…
While I do not disagree that the internet may have made it more difficult to pay attention to the multitude of paragraphs, I find his conclusion that the internet has completely rewired our brains a bit out there. Carr admits “...we still await the long-term neurological and psychological experiments that will provide a definitive picture of how Internet use affects cognition”, thus I find it impossible to take Carr’s insistence that the Internet causing people to take up “power browsing” more often to be a sign of anything bigger (Carr). Carr’s skepticism about the at the thought of the internet supplementing our intelligence seems unjustified, as people have been supplementing their knowledge with that of other humans, books, and many other sources of information outside of the internet for generations. The fear that Carr expresses of becoming technology reliant is rather obsolete, as the world is simply shifting from print books to the same information in PDFs online. If Carr sees no issue with reading books to gain intelligence or information, there is no reason for him to fear technology when it is improving ways to do this and many other aspects of…
Here, Lunsford connects with the readers by giving them an assurance that technology is playing a key role in revolutionizing people’s ability to write. In this context, it can be argued that the author gives the readers the hope that technology is not bad at all but has a crucial impact on people’s…
Numerous scholars are finding it harder and harder to stay focused; Bruce Friedman a blogger of computers in medicine called his recent way of thinking “staccato” meaning he quickly scans information without taking it all in. Even though humans are reading now more than ever because of all the easy access to information, the current reading style that human brains have developed makes a human less capable of deep reading. Since the beginning of times humans have taught themselves to read, it is not a human instinct, it is taught through the years in order to communicate and inform each other. Carr mentions how much the world has changed once the clock came into the world and humans stopped using their senses to carry out basic needs such as walking, eating, working and sleeping. Do to the internet media, advertising exists everywhere, making our minds and thoughts scatter, rewiring human’s way of thinking.…
What do you do with your thoughts? A long time ago, there was no paper to scribe thoughts onto or computers to record them. There was nothing to do with thoughts, but remember them. Anything worth preserving had to be preserved in memory. In the essay, “The End of Remembering” by Joshua Foer, memory is an important issue.…
Carr explains his experiences with google and modern technology. For example, Carr says that because of google, he can no longer read in-depth pieces of writing. This is the same for others as well, talking about his friends, Carr says “The more they use the web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing” (1). Avery Stroman, who wrote a paper regarding his thoughts on Nicholas Carr 's paper and how he feels about google says “I allowed the presence of Facebook, Twitter, and email to prevent me from reading his entire article without stopping. Without thinking, I switched from the article at hand to the internet” (79).…
Clive Thompson wrote a piece entitled, “Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better” in which he explains to his readers how technology can help us become smarter. Thompson reports how two amateur boys beat a grand master chess player using the help of a computer. He also believes that people who aren’t motivated can begin to rely on computers, but it is too early to decide if the effects of technology are actually positive or negative. In his work he confesses, “Like most writers, I constantly have to fight the procrastinator’s urge to meander online, idly checking twitter links and Wikipedia entries in a dreamy but pointless haze-until I look up in horror and realized I’ve lost two hours of work…” (351). This information tells us that even professional writers can get distracted.…
Electronics help the readers to distract themselves to not able to concentrate on reading. In the article, “How to survive the Age of Distraction” by Johann Hari, he explains to his audience that “age of distraction” is evolving because he or she is having a hard time reading a book being surrounded by electronics is distracting to those who are trying to absorb information. Hari uses two strategies to help him to support his main idea, which are to contrast and uses other author sources. By using of these two strategies, he determines that this will help the readers to understand his main idea. The point the author is trying to make is emphasized with the use of contrast and appeal to be more specific to the readers and to show what he is trying to say in his article.…
His words during a particular interview evinced his concern for this issue. He claimed that the Internet seemed to be preventing us from being able to think deeply or show the ability to focus. Carr viewed the Internet as “...a system that kept us in a state of perpetual distraction and constant disruption” (Gregoire). He also mentioned that “...psychologists and brain scientists tell us about interruptions is that they have a fairly profound effect on the way we think… [in the case of access to the Internet,] the price we pay for being constantly inundated with information is a loss of our ability to be contemplative and to engage in the kind of deep thinking that requires you to concentrate on one thing” (Gregoire). When asked about the technological impact on memory, he mentioned that “One study out of…
In this statement she says that she sees the correlation between the Internet and the technology inhibiting a deep thought when reading. Carr was methodical when choosing his sources Wolf is a good choice as a psychologist is the studies the mind and behavior of others; also, it’s like Carr analyzing his behavior as well as his audience through Wolf. Another source that worked well for Carr was the story of Friedrich Nietzsches a German writer philosopher that with the invention of the typewriter he was able to write stories as his vision was failing him and made it hard to write stories. Nietzsches was able to write to write again even one of his friends noticed a difference in his writing style. Nietzches friend said to him “Perhaps you will through this instrument even take to a new idiom”.…
Carr address that the internet is very useful but it can push us toward becoming more like a human computer. I believe Carrs…