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.