Nicholas Carr's 'Is Google Making USupid?'

Nicholas Carr, the author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, makes the argument that the internet or “Net” is causing a decline in the ability of people to read and absorb information. On one hand Carr expresses that the “Web has been a godsend” to him as a writer (532), on the other hand he is critical of the Net. He gives examples and testimonies of how he, and some esteemed colleagues, can no longer read through long literary works without distraction, all due to the internet and the inundation of information it provides. While the creators of Google state that “Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off” (537), Carr appears to disagree, as do I. …show more content…
He has written many essays and books on technology and how it affects our lives. Research that previously took him days in a library to complete, now is accessible on the computer with the click of a button. Carr seems to believe however, that this information comes with a price. When previously he could easily spend hours enjoying a lengthy book, now his “concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages” (533). He attributes this lack of concentration to distraction. When doing research on the Net, the user is bombarded with information. It is very easy to flip from one article to the next in search of the perfect quote or fact. This “staccato” effect, as described by blogger Bruce Friedman (533), causes disjointed reading, and tends to lack a true understanding of the information. Carr understands that the Net is a great tool for collecting information, but the cost of this access to limitless information is the decline in the true