Nicholas Carr and his Attitude to Google

“Is Google making us stupid?”

1. “Is Google making us stupid?” How does Nicholas Carr answer this question, and what evidence does he provide to support his answer?

Yes, Google is making us stupid or simply lazy. Nicholas Carr answers this question by mentioning the difficulty he and others experience when it comes to concentrating while reading. To support his answer, he presents a study conducted by the University College London that demonstrates how readers skim through articles and do not read more than one or two pages.

2. What possible objections to his own position does Carr introduce—and why do you think he does so? How effectively does he counter these objections?

A few objections that Carr introduced to his own position include his perspective of Google and accessing information through the search engine. He mentions that “the more pieces of information we can ‘access’ and the faster we can extract their gist, the more productive we become as thinkers.” He also endorses Google by asserting that the company seeks to develop “the perfect search engine” that “understands exactly what you mean and gives back exactly what you want.” I believe that Carr introduces these objections to display both perspectives to his readers.

3. Carr begins this essay by quoting an exchange between HAL and Dave, a supercomputer and astronaut in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey—and concludes by reflecting on that scene. What happens to HAL and Dave, and how does it support his argument?

In the film, Dave was almost sent deep into space to die by his defective supercomputer. This resulted in the astronaut disconnecting the memory circuits that oversee Hal’s brain. This supports the argument conveyed by Nicholas Carr. It presents the idea of humans depending on technology to function efficiently. Our dependability on electronics and machinery replacess our own intelligence into artificial intelligence.

4. How does Carr use transitions to connect the parts of his text and to help readers follow his train of thought? (See Chapter 8 to help you think about how they help develop an argument.)

Nicholas Carr uses transitions to connect parts of his text and to help readers follow his train of thought by repeating himself with variation. Repetition and using “pointing words” both assist with the flow of the article. For instance, Carr began his text by mentioning a scene from the film A Space Odyssey, he also concluded his text as such. He described the scene in which HAL, the supercomputer is being disconnected by Astronaut Dave. Carr used repetition in order to build bridges between what he previously said and new concepts or ideas. Lastly, he also uses pointing words such as “this,” “these,” and “those.”.

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