Reading Response #2

Andrea
English 100 F
Reading Response #2:
"Is Google Making Us Stupid?"
April 14, 2010

In the article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Nicholas Carr insists that the process in which his brain reacts to reading has gradually been evolving. He believes that his original way of thinking has been replaced with a new one. He observes that the way in which he himself takes on a book, or even a few paragraphs for that matter is not as easy as it use to be. He claims that when reading, he becomes disinterested early on. He asserts that he use to easily be reeled deep into the reading, without becoming bored. He finds that he now strays from the reading earlier than usual. In his article, Carr comments "Now my concentration seems to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging in my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that use to come naturally has become a struggle." He suggests that his habitual use of the internet and its availability of information and unique way of displaying it is responsible. When reflecting on this idea, Carr writes "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. The web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I've got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even though I'm not working, I'm as likely as not to be foraging in the Web's info-thickets, reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blogposts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link. (Unlike footnotes, to which they're sometimes likened, hyperlinks don't merely point to related works; they propel you toward them.)" He sees that the fact that he can get information in a snap leads him to accessing the internet often. He observes that the more he does this, the more he is use to these dangling hyperlinks in the midst of the text. He sees these to be tempting. The result he finds is that the constant use of the internet is increasing his expectations of text offline. He claims that this is the result of his scattered reading.