Gibran
Sheikh
Professor
Macklin
English
115
24
October 2012
Exercise
3.1 – Analyzing Claims
Nicholas
Carr, the author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, presents a claim about the
world-renown website Google. In his
article, Carr describes how such a well-known site tampers with the minds of
individuals. Carr explains how a famous site such as Google leads an individual to ultimately wander from link to link
all across the internet. As he later states, the internet leads an individual
to “scatter [their] attention and diffuse [their] concentration” (Carr). Carr
informs certain individuals about the skeptics of the internet, and that a
powerful search engine can, in the end, “tinker” with an individual’s mind. He
continues to state that there is a seemingly uncomfortable vibe that is given
by the internet, or Net, as he calls it. Inputting his own personal life, Carr
states that he has spent countless hours searching the Net and even
contributing to its database, and he agrees that the internet has become an
essential factor of media in general. However, Carr comes back to his point of
how the internet ultimately is “chipping away at [his] capacity for
concentration and contemplation”. Carr also explains how the internet is a
basis of distraction and how it serves to diminish an individual’s involvement
in certain materials. Carr also argues that the Net is responsible for the
alteration in the minds of many, different individuals. Carr climactically
reestablishes his claim towards the end of his article; in his eyes, the
internet eventually is responsible for the drop in the general intellect of
certain individuals.
The
article presented by Carr is generally consistent, in terms of Carr’s main
argument; however, Carr drifts from his main points, making it unclear of his
final position. A skeptic, Carr takes in the internet as a medium of
destruction. He claims it to ultimately diminish an individual’s thought
process, making them “stupid”. As an analyzer of Carr’s claim, I find it
evident that Carr’s logic is unreasonable. He is a bit too skeptical of the
internet as a whole, only explaining how it is used for basic searches and
compositions, even though the internet is of greater use: entertainment,
current events, sports, and general information. In other words, an individual
may decide to search for something in which he or she may already know the
outcome or answer. Say an individual saw something on another medium such as
television, and that individual wanted to inform others of what he or she saw;
they would use the internet as a tool of reference, not necessarily for search.
Carr’s use of citation and background for his claim go well with his argument;
however, there are points in which Carr flows away from his topic. As Carr
drifts from claims, it is understandable that Carr’s claim is indeed an
opinion. As Carr explains his use for Google,
“a few Google searches…and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was
after” (Carr) he seems to misunderstand the ultimate purpose of the
search-engine. Google will give Carr
that of which he searches for, but nothing more. It is merely a tool of the
internet, and nothing more. It puzzles me as to why Carr did not thoroughly
explain his point in this part of the article; nonetheless he fails to persuade
me in particular. Carr’s skepticism towards the internet as a whole and not
just Google is what makes his
argument frail and dainty. As I see it, a search-engine such as Google is merely a tool, a cosmic spoon
perhaps, for the internet, the universal bowl of soup.
Works Cited
Carr,
Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The Atlantic. Disqus, Aug.
2008. Web. 24 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/>.
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