Analysis Of Nicholas Carr's Essay 'Is Google Making USupid'

In Nicholas Carr’s essay, Is Google Making Us Stupid, he notes that the internet has clearly had negative impacts on the way we read, process thoughts, and even how we write. He argues that through the many years of being online, it has helped him with research and has allowed him to search through endless amounts of information in a short period of time, which would be otherwise impossible in a library. I agree that this is a sort of convenience that we all enjoy, especially myself, but it does hold issues we are only looking for related material for our works; and not for the sake of understanding of what we need to know. Also, is it almost impossible to read anything without wanting to get to the point instantaneously, and if not, we become somewhat unenthused and “fidgety.” But I did find that …show more content…
In Is Google Making Us Stupid, Carr and his friends have seen a shift in their cognitive experiences because of their time online with the expansive amount of information online. Carr mentions a blogger, Bruce Friedman, and he describes that the internet has altered with his brain, “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print,” and Friedman said that his thinking has taken this “staccato” sort of quality to it. Not only that, he cannot even read a “blog post of more than three or four paragraphs” without having to resort to skimming (Carr 93). This sort of behavior is something that the internet is teaching not just the young, but the average adult. According to Maryanne Wolf, reading is not a skill that we use as an “instinct,” unlike the natural urge to talk and communicate with others (Carr 94). With every new advancement in technology, as with new gizmo, it has this new effect on the way we think, I find it inevitable that our brains are going to be rewired according to what we