Reading Response #2

Martin Ramirez

Reading Response #2 “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

Anna Wolff


When it comes to the topic of if the Internet is affecting our habits of finding, researching, and absorbing information in a good or bad way, Nicholas Carr will readily agree that, the Internet is in fact affecting and/or possibly changing our habits, when he writes, “Is Google making us Stupid.” This essay is a very elongated essay debating whether we benefit from researching the internet, or whether we lose certain abilities we may have acquired before, such as being able to read and focus in on long pieces of writing. Where this debate usually ends, however, is on the question of is it affecting our habits in a good or bad way? Whereas some are convinced that modern technology is a good thing, because it is giving us the opportunity to quickly and effectively find information on any topic, others maintain that it is in a way ‘making us stupid’. Nicholas Carr suggests that new technology such as the internet is affecting and/or changing our habits. He states that immersing himself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. He continues by reporting that, “My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose.” Then he goes on to contradict his previous statement by observing that,” That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, and begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” Here, I believe he is implying that because we are now so used to just being able to get the information we want at the click of a button, we are losing the ability to really look for information and be able to absorb it in a way that we will be able to remember it and understand it as well.

“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. I think I know what is going on. 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. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” Here he claims that he feels that something is changing the way he thinks, ‘remapping his neural circuitry’, as he puts it. He goes on to acknowledge this claim by verifying that the way that his brain expects to take in information is the same as the way the Net distributes it. I feel that he is emphasizing the fact that because he does all his research online, his brain isn’t able to function the way it use to, when he could read on and on and take in information easily.

This claim, I believe, is most likely to be the most important claim that he insists on throughout his whole essay because, in a way, it gives his opinion on the Internet and its affects on our conduct. Once you know what the author’s point of view is the whole article or essay always seems to be easier to understand.

It helped me understand the essay as a whole because, now that I knew what his opinion was, I could focus on the information that he was giving and relate it to my life. Does the Internet affect the way I think? A question like that, I was able to answer due to the fact that I knew which side he stood on the debate of is the internet good or bad for our habits of finding and taking in information. And yes, I do find it hard to focus on longer pieces of paper that I have to read, thanks to the Internet and how easy it is to find only the information that I am interested in. Although, I can’t really say that I have ever known what it is like to sit in a library for hours looking for information. But if I had, I’m sure that my habits would have changed as soon as I discovered the Internet, and how easy it is to navigate towards information you desire.