Amber Lindsey

04/12/2010 Eng. 100

Reading Response # 2: “Is Google Making Us Stupid” by Nicholas Carr

Even though at the beginning I was seriously turned off by the length….longwinded is right! I really am glad now to have read the article and see the important evidence he gives us. I think Nicholas Carr’s project was to encourage the use of what the internet has to offer, and all of its advantages without becoming unfeeling robots

I really related with him when he discusses how short his attention span has gotten with reading. I used to love long involved novels and now just want short to the point stories. I thought it was quite strange that he would start the article with this and then go on to write an eight page article. When I read the article on my own, I was turned off by the drama statements that I now understand to be claims. After dissecting the article, I feel that he really backs up his claims with a good amount of valid evidence and reasons.

Originally I felt that he went off topic when discussing the mechanical clock and then the stopwatch improving the efficiency of the machinists. After slowing down and really absorbing the material, I understand why he used the analogy of those two items and the changes they have brought. His comment ‘like clockwork’ and the fact that we are doing things when a clock tells us to instead of when are senses do ARE SO TRUE!! Again, his central claim is that we can have all the rewards of the internet and keep our human selves.

I felt that one of the strongest claims in the article was ‘Never has a communication system played so many roles in our lives-or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts-as the Internet does today.’ We use the internet for almost everything…..mapping, our clock, our printing press, our postal service, our newspaper, our typewriter, our calculator, our library, our bookstore, our department stores, our grocery stores, our telephone, our radio, our TV and our DVD player. I know there are many more brick and mortar businesses that aren’t utilized due to the internet. We could easily argue that a portion of our economy collapse is due to the internet. We now can do mortgages done online and get insurance quotes in an instant.

This claim comes around the middle of the article and really helped me to get into what he’s saying. I was actually a little lost prior to this, he was talking about the brain being malleable and I felt he was too off topic. I feel overall, he supports Googles’ intentions, and he’s just standing back a little cautious. One of the quotes is.... ‘Maybe I’m just a worrywart. He also quotes Maryanne Wolf with a concept that has been buzzing around in my head ‘if we lose our quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only in ourselves but in our culture. ‘Once again, his project is to make sure that we don’t become robotic, unfeeling Zombies because of our use of the internet.