Erik Arndt
Professor Brown
English 1B
March 25, 2013
A
Rhetorical Critique of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicholas Carr
The internet, one of man's best inventions of all time or
is it? People use the internet every day for everything. This handy new tool we
have created can help us with anything like how to get directions to a friend's
house or even help with writing a paper. Sure people had information at their
disposal through books for hundreds of years but the internet is so convenient.
With this new technology will we see changes in people, Not only in people's
behavior but also the way we think and compute data?
Nicholas Carr an author of a few books and writer for
many magazines simply asks his readers "Is Google making us
stupid"? Yes the name of the
article and question are one and the same, but he also seems to ask a bigger
question "if the internet is changing the way we think all together".
In this article he has asked many of his enlightened friends if reading is same
as it once was, or can they sit down and deeply think about what they are
reading or simply pay attention long enough to even read a book, not just skim
it (which is probably what you are doing now). He brings up Historical ideas
from Socrates to HAL from "2001, A space odyssey" on how technology
makes people think. The biggest part of this article is when Google/ the
internet is brought up and how it will change over time to serve us. This all
leads up to how/what our new technology will do to us.
Nicholas Carr brings up many questions about the internet
and how it affects us on not only day to day but our actual way of thinking in
the long term. He brings up many arguments about how people are changing and
has many fine examples from friends/ other intellectuals discussing their own
experiences about the subject. Carr is unable to give us facts and only just
tidbits of historical data on events that deal in the same realm that he is
trying to show us. With his personal experience, interviews/ comments from
other writers or people in the academic world and historical remnants Carr has
shed the first real light on a growing problem in the world today.
Carr is a man who has a background in writing, but more
specifically he has written about our new age and the technology it brings
concerning people. He is the right man to bring the evidence forward and get
ahead of this soon to be epidemic. He did a great job showing Ethos in his
article by adding words from his friends/ associates whom are dealing with the
same problem as he is (whether it is personal or professionally). He uses it because
it gives him creditability and this seems to be a subject that few people have
really looked into (thus the reason to bring it to light). “When I mention my troubles with reading to friends
and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar
experiences… Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the
phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently
confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I was a lit major in
college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader…What happened?” (pg. 2). This
is a good quote and from a very good source. He used his connections to demonstrate
how someone who works online has been affected, and he was a big reader and
Literature major in college too. This was a good strategy and he used ethos.
To really bring this idea from simply a feeling to an
actual fact (via scientific research), Carr presented evidence to strengthen his
argument: “But a recently published study of online research habits, conducted
by scholars from University College London… As part of the five-year research
program, the scholars examined computer logs documenting the behavior of
visitors to two popular research sites, one operated by the British Library and
one by a U.K. educational consortium, that provide access to journal articles,
e-books, and other sources of written information. They found that people using
the sites exhibited “a form of skimming activity,” hopping from one source to
another and rarely returning to any source they’d already visited. They typically
read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would
“bounce” out to another site.” (pg. 3). He used Logos in this last quote. The
idea that an actual scientific experiment showed that people have changed their
reading habits is only the tip of the iceberg. His strategy was perfect in this
by giving actual proof of a problem. It was very effective and gave a little
background as how long this problem has been building.
Lastly Carr takes a personal approach at the encroaching
problem, by telling us how it makes him feel and how it affects his personal life:
“I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense
that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the
neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can
tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. “(pg. 2). This
is pure Pathos, his strategy here is plain and simple: get people to relate to
how he feels. Yes he does write for some magazines that are for the more “thought
provoking mind” but his quote can be felt by everyone. His strategy was
effective in my opinion simply because he brought thoughts and feelings to his
side.
The article “Is Google making us stupid?” is a thought
provoking and makes people rethink how and what they do online. Yes his
argument is flawed simply because of the lack of data but this is just the
beginning to introduce people to a new problem. Did people believe the first
reports on smoking? No they did not, but look at how we view smoking now (not
so good now). You might ask if he is qualified to write such a piece, well he
is a writer with a unique perspective on this subject, he has written several
books about technology and people. This is better than most people and it’s a new
idea with this new techno age were in. Lastly He has put personal stake into
this issue (as seen in the last paragraph) and basically made this issue known.
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