Is Google Making us Stupid? Argumentative Essay

What is the main claim/thesis?

The main claim, or thesis, is that the more dependent we become with computers and other technology, the more our own intelligence declines and the more brain-dead we become. According to Kubrick’s dark prophecy, by using this technology to understand different aspects of the world, we are generating artificial intelligence.

What are the means of support for the claim?

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The means of support Carr uses are personal testimonies, examples, and appeal to logic and value. He uses himself as a support because he admits to being a victim of his argument, he says “for more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the internet. A few Google searches, some quick clicks, and I’ve got the fact or quote I was after.” By stating this, he is showing how easy it is to become caught up in the convenience of the internet.

He uses himself as an example because most Americans can relate, and understand where he is coming from. Everyone knows that Google, or other internet search engines, make gathering information easy, however many do not realize what it is doing to their brains. Carr uses fact and an example of research done by scholars of the University College London, who were a part of a five year research project to explain how much our research habits have changed over the years. Carr’s writing causes reader’s to use logic and values when thinking about how often they use the internet, and what they are using it for.

Do the support strategies sufficiently prove the thesis?

The support strategies that Carr uses support his thesis to an extent. He explains how technology is ruining our brains, but he also contradicts himself by pointing out how regularly American’s use technology, and how often we need it for everyday tasks. His support strategies may have been better if he used more facts, or research done on why technology is destroying our brains with artificial intelligence.

“The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive”, this statement Carr makes contradicts his argument in a way because it shows that since we have access to bigger hard drives and fast processors outside of our brain, we should be using it. He does not intend to sound hypocritical; however his way of appealing to logic goes against his argument because as humans, we have come to accept the new forms of technology and the fact it could be destroying our brains.

How does the argument address opposing claims? Are those claims sufficiently refuted? The argument addresses opposing claims in a logical way. Carr gets personal with the readers, in a way that they understand what he is talking about and where he is coming from. The opposing claim, being we need technology, was not addressed on a level where humans will go against using it. He explains that by using the internet, we are gaining artificial knowledge, but losing our real knowledge.

I think there are some people who will be shocked by this and by reading about how technology is changing us, but for the most part I think America has become okay with the idea that our brains are decreasing, while our use of Google is increasing. We have accepted the fact that soon we will be full of ‘fake intelligence.’ Does the argument concede to outside positions? What is the effect of those concessions?

The argument Carr makes puts the outside position into perspective. The concessions show that Carr acknowledges, and has an open mind to the opinion of others. He values that American’s do need some basic technology, and that it can be very useful, while he also states that it can come to be a problem when it controls our lives. Does the writer define the issue correctly?

The writer does define the issue, as the more dependent we become on technology the more brain-dead we become, correctly. He does a good job of explaining what is happening, and the different psychology and neurology effects the internet has.

What is the warranting assumption?

The warranting assumption is that by only depending on technology and internet for our understanding of the world, our real intelligence is likely to decrease, while we gain artificial intelligence.

Is the assumption acceptable or arguable?

This assumption is questionable, because while there is evidence showing more people are depending on technology, there could also be arguments that some internet sites increase our intelligence. Can I prove the assumption is incorrect?

Yes, there are ways to prove that technology is helpful, and has a positive effect on society. For example, without the improvements in technology we would not have the information or access to advances in energy, medicine, cures for diseases, or education.

What else does the author of the argument assume?

Carr assumes that all people have access to newer technology. He believes that it is common for everyone in the workplace to have new cell phones, and computers. He also assumes that humans depend on technology for everything, which is why Americans have become more oblivious to things happening around them. He believes that everyone will fall into the trap of internet, and in a way will become hypnotized by it, when in reality, many people may not even have access to the internet or the new technology.

?Is Google Making Us Stupid?

“The Internet, an immeasurably powerful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies. It’s becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV,” Writes Nicholas Carr in his article, Is Google Making Us Stupid? In Carr’s article, he examines the controversial issue of whether the intensive use of the Internet affects the human mind. Today, the Internet has become apart of and has affected a myriad amount of homes all around the world. From social networking, research, and even online shopping, the Internet is the main used device everywhere.

When it comes to the Internet, the one thing that immediately comes to mind is the most common search engine, Google. Google is the most common multilingual and used search engine in the worldwide web, handling more than three billion searches each day. Many people think of Google as a gateway to the entire Internet. Google helps people to get answers to questions without intellectually challenging themselves. This search engine has helped, and still does, many people around the world to research articles, tools for business; to contact one another, and many other life-applied sources in less than 1 second.

Having Google grant us an effortless method in researching essentially anything helps us become unintelligent or in other words, stupid. The Internet is filled with all sorts of different distractions, and we all have a harder time with distractions. The information that we “learn” through the Internet helps us forget as we get older, and the Internet will only make it worse. These days it is indeed much easier to find information by searching online to get the answer or solution. Before Google was created, it was more challenging to research information by reading through encyclopedias or dictionary’s.

In my opinion, researching by this method would help us gain more knowledge towards our lives. The effort given into researching through textbooks about the topic vs. using Google does help us gain more knowledge by helping memorize and understand the topic more efficiently and clearly. As in school for researching to prove a specific topic, teachers occasionally have a preference of not using a search engine since we never know what is true and to avoid plagiarism. Google on the other hand, would give us the answer even in detail, but we do not know if it is the right answer.

Everything on the Internet is not always true. Google can, as well, make us intelligent. To become universally familiar with technology and how it is improving everyday can help us all with our lives in the future. For simple questions in areas like cooking, or safety, Google being available at the tip of our fingers is much more convenient to find and look for answers online than going to the library and use their dictionary’s every time. Having Google be there for us tends to lead us all in situations of procrastination, too.

In Carr’s article, he writes about Google, ”The Company has declared that its mission is “to organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful. ” It seeks to develop “the perfect search engine,” which it defines as something that “understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want. ” Having Google advancing more and more each day, adding more information, answering numerous amounts of questions, Google can also help us become more intelligent.

In conclusion, the Internet is the most popular device, which is, used daily by millions and millions of people around the world. Google is the most used search engine over the world. This search engine helps us all become both unintelligent and intelligent. Google does help us become unintelligent by being filled with all sorts of distractions like social medias. But, Google does also help others to be intelligent by convenience and learning about the advancing technology.

Rhetorical Analysis Is Google Making Us Stupid? by Nicholas Carr

Ever imagined a world without Google? Have you ever asked yourself how our grandparents managed studies without Google? How did they go about reading the long the long texts letter by letter without the option of skimming through them? Were there other reading techniques that were almost equivalent to Google in efficiency and speed that have since become extinct and that we might run to should we wake up one day and realize that Google was just but a dream in our long sleep that was too good to be true? Will we manage to pin down the two- sentenced killer point in a journal with a thousand pages. How I wish I could shout 'YES' but am afraid those brains are almost extinct in the world we live in.

Nicholas Carr narrates his disappointment in Google in his article," Is Google Making Us Stupid?" According to him, our minds have evolved to quick and easy skimming in search of information. He talks of how students used to read long texts without skimming. He mentions how one would concentrate and keep focus for long hours with their minds totally lost in the reading, unlike today.

Carr recalls how he used to easily immerse himself in books and lengthy articles and would spend hours going through them with his mind caught up in the long prose and would or narratives. He compares this to his current state of mind where his concentration drifts away after just the first few pages of the prose before he starts considering to switch to other duties most of which would come second in his priority list back in the old days.His love for long reading hours has turned into torture to him. He compares the two reading habits and concludes that his way of thinking has changed over the years with reading especially through long stretches of prose moving down his priority list.

To show that he is not the only one undergoing the reading evolution, he brings out other writers and bloggers including Scott Karp who share in his ordeal and from all of them its evident that the human mind and the use of the internet are correlated in that the functionality of the human mind can be transformed thus losing some features and gaining new ones when exposed to different environments, e.g. the internet for longer hours. The internet has made them all prefer to go for the easier option of skimming through the reading materials topics and parts of the body instead of trying to focus and concentrate on the whole content to get the information in details as it used to be. Most readers thus end up reading less.

Carr explains the findings of research and experiments done on the human brain and the use of the Internet. He describes how the connections in the neurone system of the brain can be manipulated from its initial form to a completely new form. The conclusions are that when an individual uses the Internet for long, his/her neurocircuits can be manipulated and reconnected thus reducing their capacity to read like before, i.e. by contemplating and concentrating for long hours, which practically makes us stupid.

In one of the research, the findings by the British Library, a team of UK educational consortium and university college London Scholars, the evidence as experienced by Nicholas Carr, writers and bloggers Scott Karp included, it proven that persons' capacity to read for long hours, contemplating and concentrating has been by far by the use of internet. They opt to skim through texts and headlines, which are unlike their traditional reading style where they would focus, concentrate and read for long hours deeply glued on the long proses going through word after word.

In the article, he describes how the brain can switch forms from the old connections to a completely new form that's losing its original form. Nicholas says that he has had a feeling of someone or something reconfiguring his brain and transforming it into something else that he cant literally describe. He feels that due to long exposure to a different environment, his brain has been disconnected from its older connections and that through the Internet his brain is being corrupted in that he is now seeing things very differently.

The Internet works in such a manner that it generates more profits form the user. As we surf, we tend to visit different sites that mostly create Internet traffic. In some instances, advertisement links normally pop-up while surfing. These sites are normally intended to market some businesses, and they act as distractors that encourage slow reading. When the mind is programmed to slow destructions, we end up not surfing for the intended issues.

For instance, when a person uses the Internet to perform given research, he or she may end up with poor findings due to the distraction of the mind. Therefore, Internet users must learn how to evade the advertisement sites in a bid to maximize on the limited time. Nicholas Carr asserts that a majority of the advertisements have a financial obligation of collecting our data as we visit the business links. In this light, they normally reap heavily the more we click on the unwanted sites.

Human beings have become highly dependent on the Internet to the extent that they browse even the obvious things. For instance, a person may even decide to surf for the reasons as to why children must obey their parents. This is a subject that is common to every person and should come naturally instead of browsing to get more information. The Internet indeed makes up stupid since most of the people spend much time thus reducing the concentration of the mind.

The mind is then triggered in such a way that it will solely depend on the Intern even when serving for the obvious issues. In summary, I think that people need to use Google when it is only necessary and start doing traditional research. This aspect will indeed result in the development of sharp minds that can also become innovative.

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