Response to "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

Taylor Thetford

Nicholas Carr's “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, Carr expresses that he feels that the internet has spurred a change in the way people read. Carr personally feels as if he is unable that he is unable to read anything in depth as he could before. He feels “he was once a scuba diver in a sea of words”, and today he feels as if he “zip(s) along the surface like a man on a jet ski”. Carr believe that the way we use the internet is effecting the way we read on a day to day basis. I think that Carr is trying to make his audience more away of the way they read and what it is that may be causing this. He is trying to make his readers consider that the web and they way we find our information today may be the culprit for this by using claims and testimony from his friends who are avid readers as well as fellow writers, as well as University College of London experiments, and the chief executive of Google to support his feelings.

I agree with Carr's statements that the way people read is, in fact, changing. Personally, I feel very distracted when I read, often stopping mid sentence to go do something else or to just to think about something else. It is near impossible for me to find the motivation to sit down and read an article that is more than two or three pages, four being a stretch. I also agree that the net offers “a style that puts 'efficiently' and 'immediacy' above all else” says Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University. The web offers a different sort of reading in my opinion. Instead of thumbing through a long encyclopedia for an answer, I can just “google” the topic and find hundreds of different websites all about that one thing. I also feel as if I read differently when I'm on the computers as opposed to when I read a book or anything on a printed page, which draws back to Carr's parallel with author Freidrich Nietzsche. Carr explains that when Nietzsche bought the typewriter his writing changed. One of Nietzsche's close friends said that “his already terse prose had become even tighter, more telegraphic”. I also agree with this statement as well. I feel that my writing differs greatly compared to when I write on a piece of paper with a pen to when I'm typing something out. I can't quite exactly say what it is but I almost feel as if my writing tightens, and feels the need to use more superficial language.

Above all, I feel that the technology we use today as a society defiantly effects all people as a whole. I feel that right now we are in a time of, as Wolf put it “'efficiency' and 'immediacy'”. People today will do anything to get the job done faster and in a more efficient manner, no matter what. The internet offers that at a very expanded level. It is almost out of date to go to a library to look for a book on a specific topic, almost no one researches anything unless they are on the web, and most of all people feel as if books are useless if you can have a whole world at your fingertips.

Reading Responce #2

Charity Jewell

In the article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid," by Nicholas Carr, he discusses how the Internet is changing our ways of reading and thinking altogether. He basically says that our minds are being rewired and we are becoming technology. In other words, he's states Daniel Bell, "we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies." Carr wants people to realize that the technology we use on a daily basis is slowing our brain’s information-process. Nicholas explains how he himself, his friends and acquaintances feel that "the more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing." This shows that it's become more of a problem than a helpful source because people are struggling to stay focused. Thus, people search the Internet quickly, scanning over things to be done within minutes so they don't have that focus struggle. Carr stated Marshall McLuhan, who said that, " And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation." I agree with this statement because the concentration on reading is lessening the more we read and it makes the scanning over stuff quickly a simple task but the comprehension of what is read can be misinterpreted. There is no aspect anymore to comprehend what you read.
We read more today than previous generations but, as Maryanne Wolf explains, "the style of reading by the Net...may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology made long and complex works of brose commonplace." We are becoming disengaged. For example, our use of clocks is almost required because we need it "to decide when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, and that we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock." Carr uses Joseph Wsizenbuam's statement that this is our reality. James Olds states “The brain has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions,” and because of this our brains are “very plastic” (as Olds says) so our way of thinking and reading is altered as we keep web surfing. In a way our brains are like a digital computer nowadays, can be programmed to perform the function of any other information-receiving device according to Alan Turing.
The Internet can be, in my opinion, compared to Frederick Winslow Taylor’s algorithm. That is breaking down how each worker should work in a factory. This was a time-and-motion study that Taylor used to organize the workers jobs to configure a method for each position. This was the start to the Industrial Revolution. I think that our use of the Internet is far over raided. We get all stressed out and fidgety when we read books or really anything not on the web. I think we should break this habit. I can tell that the use of the web is changing our perspectives on things because we just want to get things done with as soon as we can to go onto the next thing. Yes the internet is useful but if its going to change our point of view so much, I don’t think its worth using for every resource needed. Its good to pick up a book every now and then and be focused completely.

Introduction to me

My name is Charity Jewell. I am a Ferndale High School student also attending Whatcom Community College part time for running start. I am one of many people searching for more education to plan for the future. I love soccer. I also take on the hobby of singing in choir and at church of course. I can be widely open and out spoken at times but, I listen intentively. I have been through some permently damgeing struggles in the past year but I try not to let that bring me down. I always have a smile on my face and I try to help others do the same. It's just better to go by your day happy and smileing.

I enjoy writting alot because it's a great way to express myself. I seem to over explain my opinion to get my point across at times though. I love poetry and I write alot of it which not many people know about me. Through writting, I get to put my thoughts down on paper to create a better understanding and learn from there on. That seems to get me by and by. I over use punctuation and I'm not the greatest at spelling.

Reading Response #1

Charity Jewell
English 100 R

In the article, “The New Literacy” by Clive Thompson, he discusses whether today’s generation is becoming illiterate compared to previous generations. He uses research from Andrea Lunsford who conducted the Stanford Study of Writing that studied thousands of students writing habits.

Clive reported Lunsford went on talking about how the technology of the younger generation is reviving the ability to write by pushing forward in the literacy revolution. It is explained that the youth of today write far more than generations before them. In previous generations, unless people chose a carreer that required writing they didn’t use any form of text after high school.

When students write an acedemic paper it is only for an audience of one (their professor) and a grade. This makes the student feel the paper has no purpose. She states that the internet in general is changing the way people write because they now have a greater audience. Since there is a bigger audience they feel they have a greater purpose to write.

Lunsford disscussed kairos; being able to hear the author’s voice in the writing and understand the point clearer. Plus, online there is more socializing and there is a freeer expression for opinion. For todays’ students, writing is more about persuading, organizing, and debating. She compares this to the ancient Greeks tradition of arguing which was an expression of their opinions.

Another myth Lunsford examined was the effect of texting on todays’ students. She used a study where she examined the works of first year students. She found they didn’t use texting comunication in their papers.

Another point Clive listed from Lunsford was the use of complex prose. Good teaching is still needed, but Lunsford’s studies showed students are still using proper prose. From television to videogames, this generation has shown resilioncy in its acedemic writing. Today students write long and complex pieces while networking with other students. Older generations feel writing is either proper or wrong, but young people today know that understanding who they are writing for and the purpose of their writing is the most important thing.

My own view is that technology is another way of communication and could help with literature if used properly. Using the example of texting creates a clear example of how miss-use of prose would give off the idea that it’s corrupting young generations writing techniques. Though I concede that some people use texting to an extreme and are unable to use proper prose, I still maintain that today’s generation is not being left behind. For example, email is today’s form of mail. No one wants to wait for snail mail. They want it on the spot with no wait. Although some might object that there is no patience today. My response is that the technology is available so why wait? Use the resources that are available for your convenience.

The issue is important because it has everything to do with generation-to-generation relationships. If former generations feel today’s generation is unable to effectively communicate, they may not build a bridge of communication.

Reading Response #2: Nicholas Carr

Caity Chutuk
“Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

In the essay written by Nicholas Carr titled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr expresses how the amount of time he spends on the internet hinders his ability to read in-depth writing. “I’m not thinking the way I used to think,” acknowledged Carr, “…I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore…The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” Carr follows up his experiences with similar experiences of other writers that seem to be going through this same kind of ‘readers block.’ He explains how the internet “propels” him to the related works necessary to finishing his pieces of writing, comparing it to “pointing” to related works that books do. Even though the internet is no doubt much faster, in his opinion, faster might not always be better.

“My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of worlds. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski,” insisted Carr. In the end, Carr admits that maybe he’s “just being a worrywart,” which by being skeptical about his own ideas, leads readers to become skeptical of all his previous claims and sources backing up his original idea. By wrapping up the article in this way, Carr allows readers to come up with their own opinions, whether they’re a skeptic, like Carr appears to be in the end, or following the facts, like Carr seems to be in the beginning.

In this essay, I think Carr is trying to make people understand that their minds don’t work the way the internet does. We can’t pull up a dictionary in our head in less than two seconds flat, nor can we bring up previously written articles or essays in order to support a claim we are making. Even though the internet is an extremely helpful source in getting information, the human mind works slower, more like a book when one is looking up information. Carr is trying to get his readers to acknowledge and contemplate that, as a source of his, James Olds, a professor of neuroscience who directs the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University, says, “Even the adult mind is very plastic. The brain has to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions.”

In my opinion, the internet does alter the way I think. For me, when writing an essay or an article, when I can’t think of a word it’s easy to Google search for synonyms. When I need examples of how I want to begin or conclude my writing, I Google search for others who have written similar articles and take a look at how they approached the issue. When I’m confused about what a word or phrase means, I Google search for the definition. Basically, Google, and the internet in general, has created a world where all one has to do is enter a few characters into a search engine and they can have all the makings of an essay. Carr shows that he agrees with this idea in his statement, “The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes.”

Clive Thompson

    In his recent work, Clive Thompson suggest that technology is getting today’s society smarter. He wrote about how John Sutherland, a college professor from the University of London, complained about how writers are becoming lazier with there work. He says that the access of PowerPoint, Facebook, texting and video games are taking place of brilliant and original handmade essays. On the opposing side of the subject, Thompson went to Andrea Lunsford, a professor at Stanford University, for a different opinion. Andrea did many studies from 2001-2006 to notice that the nation is coming close to a literacy revolution. Her view is that all the exposure of writing like face book, texting, and ad ifenitum ad hauseam(and so on and so on), has showed that people are writing more than ever now a days. Lunsford explains that before the day of technology, people were only writing if they had to for school assignments and letter writing. Other than rare occasions, people did not write. Today, everyone with the opportunity of a computer or a cell phone writes more than any other time has before. Lunsford also elaborates how having the technology helps people have a audience to write for. When any form of writing gets put online, it is now public and any one can see it. This helps the writers be able to write more freely without thinking twice because they’re already used to people reading there work.
        Although Thompson does not say so directly, he apparently assumes that Andrea Lunsford’s swing on the subject makes more sense. He shows this by writing way more about her outlook. Doing that showed that he obviously took more time to find the evidence of the topic. By having Thompson write almost 7 times more about Lunsford than Sutherland is a clear indication on what side he leaned towards. Another way Thompson hinted at Lunsford side is that when he was talking about Sutherlands side he made his opinion sound like a complaint because he stated that he moaned about the problems writers have today. If Thompson would of wanted to hint towards Sutherlands side, he wouldn’t of used a negative word.
        My own view is that the technology is making the generation of writers be better than the previous times. As a society the advancements of electronics had made us have to adjust and learn more ways to make life easier to cope with. Though I concede that having all the technology has made myself get lazy at times, I still maintain that all the technology is making me more knowledgeable. For example, if I needed information, the easiest thing to do is go on the internet and look up my information. If I didn’t have a computer it would be much more time consuming for me. Also, by having the electronics I do today, I have to learn how to use them which overall makes me smarter. Although some might object that this generation of writers is becoming lazy, I reply that I am increasing my abilities more than the past generations. This issue is important because it demonstrates how the world is not going through a literature downfall, but a literature revolution because of the advancements in today’s society.

A slice of my life

              Since March 11th, 1994, I've been known as Harmony Jayne Hawley(obviously). I've lived in the same house all my life, in a small town with a population of roughly 200 people. My life has always been based on family first. I'm the youngest of 4 girls. My parents were 16 and 18 when they had my oldest sister and have been together ever since. Two years after that, they had my other sister. Then ten years after that another sister of mine was born, and then finally two years later, I was born. When I was young, I always wanted to follow my sisters footsteps, but last year I realized that I'm not meant to be like the rest of them. I participated in gymnastics for four years and did competitive cheerleading for eight years. Last year I branched out and tried pole vaulting in track and I had the time of my life. It was so exciting for me to go out of my comfort zone and do something new. Ever since then, I've been trying to branch out more and more. This year I quit competitive cheerleading, and gave soccer a try. After eight years of one sport, I thought it was time to see if I was good at anything else. It's been a struggle to have my parents understand why I don't want to keep doing cheerleading anymore because it has been such a huge investment for them, but they finally came to there senses and realized that I can't get better at something that I don't love doing. Some more activities I'm going to be trying in the future are skiing this winter, taking more classes at whatcom, and possibly getting a job during the school year. My passion is trying as many new things to make myself as complex as possible.
       As a writer, I enjoy to write when it doesn't have to be formal. I dislike immensely having to follow a strict format and getting marked down on papers for not following the rules. English has never been my strong point. I have always been a math person because I like having 1 answer for everything. In English, there is always such a wide variety of answers to choose from and it frustrates me when I can't grasp a concept. One type of writing I enjoy is writing letters. This summer, one of my friends was traveling a lot, so we sent letters to each other. It was such an adrenaline rush to open a letter that I'd been waiting for and finally getting to see how he was doing. It was also nice not having to worry about him critiquing how I wrote. I knew he wouldn't judge me if I didn't always use perfect grammar. Other types of writing that I use frequently is facebooking, texting and writing essays for school work. Normally, the texting and facebooking only consist of short conversations with people and talking about how my day went. Texting is an easy way for people to say how they feel over writing and not having to talk to people face to face. I personally don't text very often, but when I do it normally is a conversation with my sister who lives in Montana. I generally text at my house when I'm watching T.V. or doing anything that is unimportant. I never let texting distract me if I'm doing an important task. From my perspective, I think that texting was a terrible invention because it just gives people an excuse to not develop the skill of having to say how they feel but write it. I do text because I have the option to and it is convenient at times. For example, watching a movie. It would be extremely rude if someone chose to talk on the phone. Texting is a much quieter option. Even though I don't like to admit it, I would probably be more comfortable talking to people about my problems and have stronger relationships with my friends if I didn't ever text. Having texting has made me afraid to verbally say how I feel.

Is google making us stupid?

Harmony Hawley

9-28-10

 

          In his recent work, Nicholas Carr suggest that the creation of the internet is making peoples brains change the way they read and write. One way Carr describes the change is by going into detail about his own personal challenges that he has had to face. He talks about how now that the internet is such an easy way to look up information, he tends to drift after only 2 or 3 pages online. Sense there is such an immense amount of information, it is now easy to skim read, and not understand the whole purpose of an article or essay. Because of all the pop up adds and many different choices of sources, Nicholas insists that Google is making the worlds foundation of data larger and more accessible everyday. Carr describes the modification of technology by stating, “ Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski.” This statement seems to say that since times have changed, the way to gain more knowledge has altered immensely. Many years ago, people had to spend days gathering research, but now it only takes minutes. Another example that suck in my mind in Carr’s essay was about a man named Nietzsche. Nietzsche was becoming blind so he bought a type writer. With this access of being able to write with his eyes closed, he thought of the typewriter as an instrument. The art of using an invention by replacing hand writing helped him not give up on writing. Due to this creation, Nietzsche’s friend noticed a change in his writing. He saw the Nietzsche’s writing was become tighter and more formal. This example is important as this article shows the start the start of how technology changed people’s writing. Carr is trying to prove more and more about how in only a decade, the way of scholastic living has evolved. On the other hand, others may protest that having all the information in the world on the Net is not effecting the world globally, Carr disagrees showing many examples of the other side of this debate, stating that it is changing all of how we think.

          My own view is that the internet has tweaked everyone’s brain who has used it. I always hear stories from my elders about how difficult school was as a kid and how much time they spent looking through books. Now that I have the option of being able to quickly research whatever I please by a simple click of a mouse makes me thankful. Although I have such an easy way to learn, the choice of Google searches makes me feel lazy about not going out of my way to look through a book. Instead, I do what all people do and I hop online. Thought I concede that the internet is changing how people look at the world, I still maintain that I wish I didn’t have so much exposure. For example, without the internet, my brain could be completely different than it is now. For this subject, my main objective is my own curiosity. I have discovered I am a bit like Nicholas Carr by being such worrywart about the whole situation.

Carr's two most important claims

Claim #1: "I'm not the only one."- Carr then begins to go into detail about how his friends are also affected by the Net, because at the beginning he was only talking about himself.  But there are many more people the Internet is altering.

Claim #2: "Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also had described how the internet has altered his mental habbits."- Carr tends to back up this claim by refering to Friedman about he can no longer sit and read a long book, so it is not just affecting his Internet reading, but also his book reading.  In other words, his life has now changed because he can't read like he used to.

By: Jared Eckert, Harmony Hawley, and Sarah Benne

Jori, Alex G, Celeste

One of the most important claims was that "The type writer rescued him, at least for a time"
It was convincing because he was using evidence from Nietzche friends saying his writing changed. Also, his vision was failing and the type writer restored his writing ability. Another important claim was "The human Brain is almost infinitely malleable"He supports this claim with multiple scientific evidence, such as "nerve cells routinely make connections and form new ones"

"Is Google Making Us Stupid" Group 6

The two most convincing claims that we found were the following:

"Maybe I'm just a worrywart". We found this claim to be convincing because, Carr goes from stating throughout the entire article that he is against Google, and networking because it effects our brains negativly. Then all the sudden Carr begins his paragraph by saying "Maybe I'm just a worrywart." Carr then supports this claim boldly with strong evidence such as, Plato's Phaedrus, and how Socrates bemoaned the development of writing.

"If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with "content", we will sacrafice something important not only in our selves but in our culture." We also found this claim to be very convincing because, directly after this statement a plethora of evidence is demonstrated. For example, an essay written by Richard Foreman "elequently described what's at stake."

The 2 Most Convincing Claims

Katelyn, May, and Charity

The two most convincing claims from our section were:
1. Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice.
2. But it's a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking - perhaps even a new sense of the self.
These were the most convincing because his claims imply evidence and he tries to be thorough by stating dates. He gives the statement that today's generation is reading more and comprehending more from what they read.

Key Claims of Section Seven

"Then again the Net isnt the alphabet, and although it may replace the printing press, it produces something altogether different. The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author's words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by another act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas."

"Just as there's a tendency to glorify technological progress, there's a countertendency to expect the worst of every new tool or machine."
(This second quote is a contradicting claim.)

"Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Convincing Two Claims

Claim #1-"In Google's view, information is a kind of commodity, a utilitarian resouce that can be mined and processed with industrial efficiency. The more pieces of information we can "access" and the faster we can extract their gist, the more productive we become as thinkers."
Claim #2- "The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It's in their economic interest to drive us to distraction."
-Both of these claims seemed most important because they directly analyze the importance of Carr's idea, that there is no longer any concentrated deep thought when reading due to the way Google has trained our minds.

Dylan, Taylor, Jon

Group 4 Is Google Making Us Stupid

1)"The nets influence doesn't end at the edges of a computer screen, either."

This is a convincing claim because the entire rest of the paragraph, 4 sentences, are evidence and reasoning of why it is true.

2)"And now, thanks to the growing power that computer engineers and software coders wield over our intellectual live, Taylor's ethic is beginning to govern the realm of the mind as well."

This is believable because the evidence given after is deep, and relavant in most peoples life.

Reading Response #2 Jared Eckert

            I think it is safe to say the internet has given us the ability to obtain information at a blistering pace. We can find bits and pieces of information instantly instead of hours or days. But do we connect with these pieces of information we so easily receive?  Nicholas Carr has his doubts.

            Carr advocates that the internet has “rewired” how our brain interprets data in his article Is Google Making Us Stupid?  Since the birth of the internet, it’s popularity and use has exploded in numbers no one cold have predicted. Just about everything is done through the web these days. T.v., radio, books, newspapers, music, anything and everything has found its way to the world wide web. So much at our finger tips, at such a fast rate. Have our brains begun thinking in such a way? I’m not talking about accessing information in our brain instantaneously. I’m talking about our ability to concentrate and connect deeply with a single piece of writing or information.

            In high school, during research projects I was told by my instructors to “skim” the websites and articles for the information necessary for my subject. Reading anything fully has become “inefficient” and a waste of time. Now, now ,now is what the world seems to be all about these days and I’ve felt it. Through this idea that merely scanning text to get the general idea of things has taken its toll on my minds patience. As we speak I am having a difficult time sitting down and composing sentences and ideas without my mind wondering or veering off into the all too familiar “I should check facebook.”  As fast as the information pops up on my screen, equally and oppositely has my attention left.

            Ncholas purposes the idea that maybe our brains and our way of think have become obsolete. That machines are surpassing the human psyche. Robots are on the verge of over throwing the human race, the human mind. We’ve all seen movies with a plot such as this such as I Robot. Computers with super possessors and terabytes of memory storage are increasingly more abundant. Capable of crunching and storing more information that our brains. Clearly computers and machines are making our minds weaker, right? Plato, the great greek philosopher believed that writing would be the absolute down fall of the human mind. Back then it was normal for people to have entire epics memorized. Writing to him meant a lack of understanding, and lost of capability to learn and absorb. It is very apparent now that writing has expanded our information to every corner of  the planet and has done nothing more than help our brains learn and absorb information.

            In conclusion, Though it may be true that computers and the internet are altering the way our brains take in data, we don’t know if there is some  benefit from it yet. Just as Plato didn’t see how writing would change the way people a acquire and master information. 

My 2 cents on the Google article

In this rollercoaster of an article by Nicholas Carr, he talks about the main question at hand, "Is Google making us stupid?" He starts off by talking about his own experiences on how over the years he feels like he hasn't been the same; as if someone has been tinkering with his brain and reprogramming his memory. Carr feels it worst when he starts to read; he says that it is now difficult to read a book or a lengthy article and that his skill of deep reading has become a struggle. He then introduces the phenomenon that is Google; he goes on to say that when he uses Google, all he has to do is make a few searches, do some quick clicks on hyperlinks and boom, instant answer. Research that was once done by a sea of books and various library visits that would take hours was now replaced by the various internet sites that can be accessed by Google within minutes of use; the process was so easy it was remarkable!

Carr was not the only one that was concerned; the article changed gears to a new person, Marshall McLuhan, a media theorist. He goes on about how the net seems to be chipping away his capacity for concentration and contemplation. His mind expects to take in the information the way the net distributes it. He then says a well remembered statement from the article, "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words, now I zip along the surface like a guy on a ski jet." Throughout this article, it talks about other people and their experiences with the net and how instead of reading vast lengths of text, they now have to resort to skimming just to fight to stay focused. There is also a mention of 1882 when Friedrich Nietzche couldn't write anymore , so he had to adapt to the typewriter. This essentially changed the way he wrote but he could finally write again.

I agree with Carr's statements on this net business. The way that we absorb information has gotten lazier. It was once a trip to the library to look at various amounts of text books and encyclopedias, now it's a simple task on the internet and you get exactly what you need in a matter of minutes. As more information begins to shift to the net, our brains begin to adapt to this new shift in order for us to take information faster with less research. To support my thought, Carr mentions in his article that nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones; we break old connections with books and form new connections on the net. Some of my experiences with this topic started back before high school. I did all my research in libraries looking through books and whatnot, then high school came along and I was introduced to the internet and its vast information databases. From that point on, my brain adapted to these new researching techniques, and I believe it worked out best for me. As for Carr, he stated that he is concerned about this topic but later in the article he says that maybe he is just a worrywart. Maybe it's not as bad as he thinks, but he sure has a great say in all of this!

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Is Google Making Us Stupid?
When researching for class, a project or personal pleasure what skills do you use to find your information? Well in today’s age most of us are “skimmers” this mean we look over the text of a website or book briefly to find key things. Some of us may have become this kind of researcher or reader while others have been taught to. Either way this is a big change from how it is said that people used to read. Should we blame technology?
Author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid” Nicholas Carr has a very bold opinion on this topic. His article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” is a very detailed and thoughtful essay. Not only does he relate our new ways of reading to past things in history, but also provides studies and facts that prove his point. Carr’s point/opinion being that the internet really is reshaping our brains, especially when it comes to reading. He goes so far as to say that he feels to others (in reference to the makers of Google) “the human brain is just and outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive.” Frederick Winslow Taylor was the man who came up with systems of doing everything as fast as could be done with most product and profit. Carr relates Taylor’s system to how our brains now work; our brains are programmed to do everything quick and efficient now. Carr is really questioning the “efficient” part of this whole idea, is skimming through text for facts really better then old fashioned deep reading?
Nicholas Carr’s opinion, statements from others and facts all make sense to me, but I can’t say that I agree one hundred percent. When writing a paper that you need information for, I don’t necessarily think that “skimming” through an article is such a horrible thing. Reading a novel or a text that you are really supposed to be learning from is a little different. Skimming can help you pick out good facts, but I still believe that you should completely read something and then skim back through to find those key things that you remembered, especially in text book reading. If you need to learn the information then you need to make sure you “read deeply” and absorb all of the little things as well. We all have different ways of learning though and some people may skim and others may read deeply. Whether our way of reading and processing has changed or not I can’t agree with the title. With the advances we are making in the world today I don’t think anyone is getting “Stupid.” I do agree that it is easy for us to develop new ways of doing things. Like Carr pointed out in his article, it is proven that even adult brains are very malleable. I question some of his opinions, but then again so does Nicholas Carr. Carr says “maybe I’m just a worrywart.” So I think with a few more facts and a few less comparisons Carr is really onto something.

Reading Response on Nicholas Carr's, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

In his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr observes that due to his overuse of the Internet, this practice has negatively changed and affected his mind’s way of thinking, responding and absorbing reading materials. He claims, “Someone or something has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry and reprogramming the memory.” Carr points out that the Internet indeed has overflowing information of all sorts, but surrounded with advertisement, pop-ups, hyperlinks, blinking ads and other digital gewgaws. As a result, our minds tend to only skim through the readings we are after because these readings are situated in a distractive setting which makes it difficult for us to focus and completely immerse ourselves into.

Carr urges that he is not the only one who feels this way; in fact many of his friends and acquaintances are having similar experiences. They all agree that the more they use the Web, the more they have difficulty focusing on long readings; they easily get distracted, and their minds have been molded into superficial thinking. In his article, he supports his theory with several convincing sources that maintain Internet has truly affected our ability to read and write. These sources are very interesting and somewhat lure you to concur. For example, he makes a comparison between how our minds attune to the Internet’s characteristics and how our minds respond to the “Clock’s time.” Apparently, “When the mechanical clock arrived, people began thinking of their brains as operating like clockwork.” We have therefore, adapted our ways of living- like when to eat, to work, to sleep and rise according to the Clock’s time. Consequently, Carr suggests now our minds think, respond and absorb reading materials like how the Internet distributes it. Overall, Carr makes a very convincing plea to the readers to question whether his issue, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” relatively true.

My feelings on the issue are mixed. I do support Carr’s point that the Internet is a distractive environment for profound readings. The pop-ups, blinking ads, hyperlinks, advertisements etc. can either irritate me or amuse me, hence certainly distract me from my reading. I cannot accept his overall conclusion that the Internet has affected my ability to read and write. I can’t count how many times I have gone on the Internet to search for matters that I wanted to read or know about. Thanks to Google, I can write about what I have read or know about. Internet is just so handy to have because it cuts your time short when you want to research about something. I certainly prefer this versus a long trip to the Library. I don’t know what Carr means that Internet has overall affected my reading and writing. Every now and then, I purchase books or novels and I can still completely immerse myself in these materials. Perhaps it hasn’t affected me because I’m not as big of a reader as him but my experience is on the contrary. Internet has definitely made my life easier. I can write and engage conversations about certain matters because I have read about them online.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Kylie Garrison

In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr provides evidence that he believes is proving that the Internet is frying our brains, becoming an addiction, and causing a severe lack of focus including the ability to comprehend reading. Nicholas Carr goes into a personal state of confirmation to help persuade this idea. Carr states that he has realized he also has had a problem with not being on the computer constantly. Many people access a computer various times per day. They check their emails, Facebook, Myspace, online homework, etc. He goes into detail by giving case in point example such as, “the internet seems to be chipping away my capacity to concentrate and contemplation.” Carr provides another example saying that “When the mechanical clock arrived, people began thinking of their brains as operating like clockwork. Today, in the age of software, we have come to think of them as operating like computers. Carr presents several reasons supporting why he believes computers are altering our brains.

As I was reading I was paying attention to how many distractions I had during the course of reading this, it took me an hour and a half to two hours to read this seven page article. While I was writing this response I had a tab for Facebook and Yahoo up, and my cell phone right next to me. That is when I started to recognize what Carr is trying to teach about such short attention spans is shockingly true. We have taught ourselves since we were put in first grade how to read. It is a natural feature we have stored in our brains. The internet does have a large weight that is affecting this. In this article Carr grants us with numerous details why he thinks this is true. He also includes information from several trusting sources, such as sociologists and psychologists.

My opinion on this article is that I strongly support this. The internet has started to transform our brains to read shorthand passages, rather than novels and creative writing. Also, the net has decreased our concentration capability drastically. We have so many distractions when on a computer; I myself find it very hard to focus when reading even a Facebook message. Little pop ups, text messages, or you got a message on IM all adds to the fact that you have to re-read a paragraph you have read several times already. It is very obvious that there is an issue with how much our attention span had fallen since 20 years ago. Yet, I also insist there is a very positive side to this increase in computer use. The computer is not something we are forced to go on or even own. It is a self decision how many times a day you allow yourself to go on, there are many other sources to get information from. The internet can be used to an advantage or a disadvantage depending on what you use it for. There is quite a bit of very useful information that even professors find valuable and do not teach. I think the internet usage is generally an admirable trait to society as we learn many things from there. The only downfall is the fact that people take it for granted.

Response to "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

In "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", the author, Nicholas Carr suggests that the internet has had a negative affect on the human brain. Society was once a place where man would pour over his readings, spending a great deal of time researching, looking up articles, and drinking in all the information. Ever since the internet has been a part of our world, it has greatly reduced the amount of time we spend looking things up, but it has also caused us to become lazy in our reading. We begin to lose our concentration when we start reading a long article, we can no longer sit still so we move on and begin to search for something else. "The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle," explains Carr. Maryanne Wolff supports Carr in that she also believes that the Net is encouraging people to read "a style of writing that puts 'efficiency' and 'immediacy' above all else" and thus causing us to weaken our willingness for a deeper reading that surfaced with the invention of the printing press. In 1936, Alan Turing believed that the computer "could be programed to perform the function of any other information-processing device, and boy was he right. The computer is now able to include many household appliances, those of which include: clock, radio, TV, telephone, and calculator-just to name a few. But it doesn’t end there. Carr doesn’t know if he has the right mind set, he can’t see a hundred years down the road and see how the computer will affect us. It may be for the better or for the worse, he will never know, but he can’t help but think that what used to be ‘our own intelligence has flattens into artificial intelligence’.

I can’t help but agree with Carr. I feel that we are not only reading differently, but our lives are different too. Because we spend so much time on the computer, now that it can also be other appliances (TV, radio, etc...), I feel that we are not spending as much time outside of the home or with our families that we should be. Some people now a days think that since they can talk to their friends on facebook, they don’t have to talk to them face to face. Sure, maybe they will take in a lot of information with the amount of time they spend on the computer, but the more time they spend on it, the less time they spend in the real world. If they get too much of it they will lose the firm connection they once had with their friends. Soon, the only relationship they will have will be with their computer. I’d hate to live that kind of life, and yet I already see some of my friends turning into that person. Carr was right when he suggested that the internet is affecting our brain, but it’s not the internet’s fault. It is up to us to change our ways and get back on track with our lives.

Is Google Melting Our Brains?

In Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” he advocates that the internet is in the making of distinguishing deep and thought and contemplation that comes with reading from a book. Carr continues to state throughout his piece that the internet is changing our minds to be less attentive, and that we skim read more than deep read. Carr quotes a media theorist Marshall McLuhan who says, “My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” Carr uses different people throughout his article for his support. He even refers to events of the past to enlighten his theory. He acknowledges an old writer called Friedrich Nietzsche who used to write everything by hand but eventually bought a typewriter because his eyes could no longer stand to look at paper. Nietzsche learned how to type from muscle memory, but his friend told him that his prose had changed completely “from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style.” Carr believes that since what we read has changed our brain has changed along with it. Our brain no longer goes deep into the sea of words like a scuba diver, but skims it for information we need like someone on a Jet Ski.
I agree with Carr that people in general are becoming lazier when it comes to our reading. Many people these days would rather look for information on the internet for a few minutes than spend a few hours at the library. Carr explains how our brains are very plastic. That even in adulthood, nerve cells within the brain continue to break connections and create new ones. It makes sense that when the form of our reading material changes the way our brain absorbs that material changes as well. However, when Carr states in his article that “Our ability to interpret text…remains largely disengaged,” I cannot agree with him. I believe that although the current generation is doing a large amount of their reading on the internet, they are still able to interpret and put their own ideas into the material that they are reading. We may be absorbing more information but it does not drain out our ability to feel and react to what we are reading. I still remain very engaged into texts when I am reading any type of writing. But that may also be because I enjoy reading and not be the case for everyone.
As Carr admits in his own article, he is being a worrywart. I acknowledge that the internet has a significant impact on my generation, but I do not believe it is exactly a negative impact. The internet is a valuable source of information that the world would not be able to live without. It is unfortunate to admit how much our world does rely on technology, but if we had been worrywarts in the past and looked down upon progress, our world would not as much as efficient. It would be slower, and yes we would have more time to contemplate situations, but we would also not have access to materials such as Carr’s article.

Is Google making us stupid?

Cora Howell
Reading Response 2
“Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicolas Carr claims that the internet and Google are actually making us stupid. He says that immersing himself in a book or lengthy article used to be easy for him, but now that is rarely the case. He includes, “Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” After I read this, I began to think of myself. This is often what happens to me. When I am searching through Google for a homework assignment, I look for the smallest article possible so that I can find the answer I am looking for and waste the least amount of time possible. I believe that this is exactly what Carr is referring to. We want our answers and we want them with the least amount of work on our part. “Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes.” So why should we waste our precious time searching for answers in a much more difficult place when they can be given to us in a matter of seconds online? Well, if we were to consider Socrates’ fear about the development of writing back in his time, I think we could become to realize how much the internet is effecting us today. Socrates feared that “as people came to rely on the written word as a substitute for knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would, in the words of one of the dialogue’s characters, ‘cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.’” The new technology of writing did, in fact, have some of the effects that Socrates was scared of. So maybe Carr is actually trying to warn us that we may think that the growing technology of the internet is helping us, but it is actually taking our “smart” with it as it moves.
The internet might be making us “stupid,” but I believe that we are contributing to our own growing stupidity. We have a choice on how to research for a project or how to spend our free time. Unfortunately like Carr said, we want the shortest and easiest way possible. But if we would really like to hold on to our knowledge, we can. The internet doesn’t have control over us and we don’t have to use it if we don’t choose to. Although I am saying this, I have to confess that I would rather use the internet myself. Like Carr had stated, “my mind expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.” Even this article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid” frightened me when I first set my eyes on it because of its long grueling eight pages. So yes, maybe the internet is making us stupid, but we cannot forget that we have a choice to stop it. There are hopefully always going to be other resources available.

Is Google making us stupid?

Katelyn Gordon

In the article “is Google making us stupid?” Nicholas Carr explains his views about how technology is effecting the younger generations. He goes a lot into how they are losing their ability to research and writ like the people of older generations, and that they are using their “texting language” inappropriately in essays and academic writing. He also argues how they use the internet too much and that they are losing there attention span when reading. “My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” Carr explains. He goes into how we tend to just scan a paper or article to get the main idea of it instead of careful reading and studying.
As far as Google making us stupid I don’t agree. I think we are becoming more resourceful and saving time with technology and new skills. The fact that the younger generations can find any information just by going on line and searching it super quick and having answers in the matter of minutes is amazing. Rather than going to a library and looking through book after book just to find a quote or passage spending hours of your time for one thing. Then with what Carr said about the “texting Language” and how it is being misused I disagree again. Yes, the younger generation does use abbreviations and shortcuts, but they know when it is appropriate and when it’s not. I do agree that having the internet and a using key boards is changing the way we write, he quoted over 7 different people on that topic with supporting evidence backing him up. Lewis Mumford explains “how the clock “disassociated time from human events and helped create the belief in an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences.” The “abstract framework of divided time” became “the point of reference for both action and thought.”” Carr has many examples like this that back up his point. Although I disagree with much that Carr says, I fully endorse his final conclusion that we are becoming emotionless and “almost robotic”. “People have become so machinelike that the most human character turns out to be a machine… as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence. “

Is Google Making Us Stupid- Who is Really to Blame?

Every day, a great number of people log on to the internet. These people read their e-mail, shop online, and research for their next term paper, but in all of this contact with the computer, is it altering the way we process information? In the article Is Google Making Us Stupid by Nicholas Carr, that is exactly what he sought after. It begins with him explaining how being on the internet has altered the way he thinks. He writes that, when reading, his “concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages.” Carr goes on to give examples of the typewriter, the clock, and of Frederick Taylor’s method of improving efficiency and how these technologies have altered the way we operate. With media needing to constantly grab our attention, things must be shorter in order to meet the needs of our new attention spans. Tom Bodkin “[explains] that the “shortcuts” [will] give harried readers a quick “taste””. So with our brains being “almost infinitely malleable”, Carr gives valid points as to why he is worried that our minds are beginning to act like computers.

After reading this article, I had to laugh. Three pages into it, I had to read a text message. A few minutes later, I received an e-mail and all throughout the paper, I had to reread a paragraph because I couldn’t stop thinking about that apple crisp in the fridge. I love to read, I really do, but it takes a lot of concentration for me to get through a lengthy amount of text. When the piece began to talk about the media and how it is designed to “scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration”, I began to worry. Are we beginning to think like computers? Do we really want such short attention spans? Is this healthy? It became clear to me that the way I think is largely due to the amount of time I spend on this internet, however, I don’t believe that I should point a finger. So who is to blame? Though sometimes, the last person we want to blame is ourselves, I think we need to look at this a little closer. Yes, especially for students it is essential to be online on a consistent basis to research and learn. However, it is a choice to go on to Facebook and constantly click on the links that grab our attention. Just because those links are there and that information is readily available to us, does not mean that we have to act on it. On the other hand, if we do not notice that clicking on the pop-ups, or skimming those articles are altering our way of thinking, how could we know that this could potentially be a negative thing? Also, in such a fast paced world, where every move we make must be efficient, it would be a waste of time to do things in an old fashioned manner. Therefore, in a way, we are being forced to act in the way the internet wants us to.

As Carr states, “maybe I’m just a worrywart”. However, reading this article has greatly altered the way I think of the internet. Yes, of course I want technological advancement, but at what cost? Maybe if we were all aware of what is changing in our minds, we may have more control over how we run our lives and moderate our uses of the internet.

Jon on "Is Google Making Us Stupid"

“As we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.” A statement that is made loud and clear in Nicholas Carr’s article for The Atlantic, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”. Carr begins by expressing his personal and others experience with the web, claiming that something has “been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory”. This something he is talking about is the internet. He begins showing the reader that we simply can no longer get deep into reading, that we do nothing but skim and skip through a book or article. That most people simply don’t even read out of books anymore, “ What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, … but because the way I THINK has changed” acknowledged Scott Karp, a blogger for online media. Carr then brings us factual evidence rather than opinion with the “Study of Online Research Habits” conducted by the University College London. In this study scholars examined the way people would research on two popular sites for five years. One was operated by the British Library and the other a U.K educational consortium. In their study they found people showed “a form of skimming activity” going from source to source and almost never returning to a site they had been to. He then goes on to reinforce his idea with developmental psychologist Maryanne Wolf, “We are not only what we read”, “We are how we read”. By the immediate touch of a button we can find just about find anything we are searching for, and this takes away from the deep reading that we did during the age of the printing press. When we are on the web we become “mere decoders of information”.

The human mind was not born with the ability to read it is not instinctive, “We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand and the media or other technologies we use in learning… play an important part in shaping the neural circuits inside our brains”. Carr goes on to talk about the differences in a reader of chineese ideograms and a reader of the alphabet and how their mental circuitry is wired in another way. The mind adapts to what it has to, it “has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions” adds James Olds, a professor of neuroscience.

So this means that the brain alters itself to fit the needs of the current situation, “In deciding when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock.” States MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizebaum. The clock had given the brain a new way to structure itself based on a schedule rather than an emotion or feeling. This idea of efficiency and speed came to be with Taylorism, a system first brought to us by Frederick Winslow Taylor. He went to a Midvale steel plant in Philadelphia testing the times and every movement done by the workers and the machine. Out of his data Taylor created a set of very detailed instructions on how to do each job. The productivity of the factory boomed and soon every industry and country would adopt Taylorism.

Google is “ a company that’s founded around the science of measurement” and wants to “ Systematize everything” said by chief executive of Google Eric Schmidt. Carr then insists that “What Taylor did for the work of the hand, Google is doing for the work of the mind”. A statement that becomes very clear threw out the rest of the article. So what is Googles main goal? Carr believes that Google has the “desire to turn their search engine into an artificial intelligence” and Google founder Sergey Brin reinforces his idea with a quote from his interview with Newsweek “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.” A statement that would make philosopher Socrates roll in his grave, who said “receive a quanity of information without proper instruction, would be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.” And that they would be “filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom”. Which really spoke to me as a human being, I don’t want to be able to just upload data into my mind, I want to earn it, research it, and absorb it on my own. I want some of the “real wisdom” that Socrates was talking about. I guess there is nothing more we can do but follow the system and let our brains rewire themselves over and over again adjusting to new ways that come with the years. Overall I agree with Carr in his ideas, taking in his points while most likely doing exactly what we warned me of, skimming the paper or getting up to do something else in the middle of a sentence. I find Kubrick’s “dark prophecy” just to be as unsettling as Carr does, so I will end this how I started it quoting Carr, “ as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.”