Does the Internet Influence Our Intelligence? The internet has become one of the most useful and helpful resources in human history. The vast amount of knowledge on any subject imaginable can all be obtain by the press of some buttons. One must ask if all this knowledge is good for us or not? Nicholas Carr, the author of Is Google Making Us Stupid, helps one realize the true implications of the internet and the dangers that lurk beneath. Carr successfully describes how the internet manipulates human minds towards the decline and ultimately the destruction of one’s concentration and contemplation by the need for efficiency, distraction, and improving technology. The Internet is seen to make research instant and almost effortless. Carr says
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Carr says, “A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets-reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link” (Carr 1-2). He describes that he has become more inclined to be on the internet preceding, during, and concluding work. The countless hours on the Internet wouldn’t be a bad thing if the distractions it administers wouldn’t diminish one’s concentration. “When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is re-created in the Net’s image” (Carr 4), which Carr then continues with, “It 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” (Carr 4). What Carr is saying is the Internet tracks one’s path through it and finds what they like. It then continually reminds them of all the cool things it can do as distractions while one is trying to work. Carr’s example of this is “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 4), providing a distraction from the newspaper article so one will check their e-mail. Carr also acknowledges the movement all media has …show more content…
Carr generalizes most people’s thought as “we’d all ‘be better off’ if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence” (Carr 6). To see the problem with this, Carr sends us back to the time of Socrates. Carr describes how Socrates “bemoaned the development of writing” (Carr 6). Carr says, “He feared that, as people came to rely on the written word as a substitute for the knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would…’cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful’” (Carr 6-7). He also goes on to describe that “They would be ‘filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.’” (Carr 7). Socrates unknowingly predicted the future of most technological breakthroughs including the Internet. Carr wants the reader to think the same way about the Internet as Socrates did about writing. Instead of figuring out the answer to a problem, one can simply Google anything. The Internet has decreased memory tenfold over what Socrates thought writing would do. Instead of just remember stories, people can rely strictly on the Internet to guide their everyday lives. Carr effectively shows how technological advancement is a step away from obtaining more knowledge. Carr efficiently shows how the internet manipulates human minds towards the decline and ultimately the destruction of one’s concentration and contemplation by the need for
Carr says, “A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets-reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link” (Carr 1-2). He describes that he has become more inclined to be on the internet preceding, during, and concluding work. The countless hours on the Internet wouldn’t be a bad thing if the distractions it administers wouldn’t diminish one’s concentration. “When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is re-created in the Net’s image” (Carr 4), which Carr then continues with, “It 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” (Carr 4). What Carr is saying is the Internet tracks one’s path through it and finds what they like. It then continually reminds them of all the cool things it can do as distractions while one is trying to work. Carr’s example of this is “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 4), providing a distraction from the newspaper article so one will check their e-mail. Carr also acknowledges the movement all media has …show more content…
Carr generalizes most people’s thought as “we’d all ‘be better off’ if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence” (Carr 6). To see the problem with this, Carr sends us back to the time of Socrates. Carr describes how Socrates “bemoaned the development of writing” (Carr 6). Carr says, “He feared that, as people came to rely on the written word as a substitute for the knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would…’cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful’” (Carr 6-7). He also goes on to describe that “They would be ‘filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.’” (Carr 7). Socrates unknowingly predicted the future of most technological breakthroughs including the Internet. Carr wants the reader to think the same way about the Internet as Socrates did about writing. Instead of figuring out the answer to a problem, one can simply Google anything. The Internet has decreased memory tenfold over what Socrates thought writing would do. Instead of just remember stories, people can rely strictly on the Internet to guide their everyday lives. Carr effectively shows how technological advancement is a step away from obtaining more knowledge. Carr efficiently shows how the internet manipulates human minds towards the decline and ultimately the destruction of one’s concentration and contemplation by the need for