Reading Response 2
Kelly Wilson


After reading the article is Google making us stupid by Nicholas Carr. It is my belief that Carr does not in fact believe technology is making us stupid. Rather he feels it is simply changing the way we think. Carr makes this evident when he describes the research done by Frederick Winslow Taylor who carried a stopwatch in a Philadelphia steel plant. By timing every motion that a worker performed Taylor was able to come up with the most productive and least time consuming way for a worker to operate. At first the workers were upset about having to perform there tasks in such a specific way but over time the plant as a whole saw increases in productivity. This is similar to the way our minds are changing today in order to adapt to new technology. Nicholas car uses himself as an example when he states that his own mind can no longer stay focused on a specific book or article for to long a period of time. He believes that the internet is to blame for this. When a person needed to research something twenty years ago they would have to spend hours in a library, looking threw dozens of books just for a few small pieces of information. Now however that same amount of information can be found with just a few key strokes on the internet. It’s as if our brains are being trained to perform in the most productive manner just like the steelworkers Taylor trained.


Nicholas Cars claim “Never has a communications system played so many roles in our lives or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts as the internet does today” stands out most in my mind after reading this article. I believe this is because most people myself included can see that this statement is true in our everyday lives. The internet has grown faster than any other source of media ever before and is continuing to expand everyday. This is visible everywhere we look, the internet can be used to read papers watch television even to listen to the radio. It is almost as if the web can deliver everything in one package faster than ever before and at the same time. I feel it was with this main claim in mind that Nicholas Carr wrote this article and it isn’t in order to make us feel as if we are becoming stupid but more or less to show us how our brains continue to adapt to our surroundings. Even if we are unaware of the changes to our minds its happening, just like during the industrial revolution when Frederick Taylor conducted his research.


To state my own opinions on this matter I would have to agree with Cars beliefs, mainly because I have noticed the same things in my own reading habits. Rather than read a full page or paper I now just skim through looking for important pieces of information. I never even realized this however until reading this article and the fact that technology is changing our brains were brought to my attention.