Carr Response Paper
An avid writer and a well
accomplished one at that; Nicholas Carr discusses technology and the affects as
well as the extent that Internet is changing our thoughts. Carr has written
numerous books on the subject and has an extensive career in writing. Some of
his works include being a columnist of the Guardian
in London, and published works in Atlantic,
the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Wired, the New Republic, MIT Technology
Review, and Nature. In the
article he published, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, Carr discusses the use of
the Internet and how he himself is noticing changes within his own mind.
Despite the fact that, “The Web has been a godsend [to me] as a writer”, Carr
also finds that, “…the Net seems to be chipping away my capacity for
concentration and contemplation.” The overall argument presented throughout the
paper by Carr is that the Internet and online reading and searching is far less
thought provoking than reading from a book. Due to this concept that the
Internet is causing us to become distracted, or often we can find ourselves
“drifting” from long texts, in turn this phenomenon is making us “stupid” as
Carr uses in the title of the article. In this paper, I will discuss the
strengths of Carr’s arguments as well as the weaknesses through analyzation of
Aristotelian Appeals known as logos, pathos, and ethos.
Carr starts his article through
utilizing a theater example from the movie 2001:A Space Odyssey that
sets a chilling scene for the remainder of his article, the computer states,
“Dave my mind is going, I can feel it. I can feel it.” An emotional appeal to
some readers in the audience, despite the fact that Hal is a computer we feel
his childlike pleading as if it were human. Carr uses this to lead into what
his argument regarding the Internet stands at. Carr reports that, “he can feel
it too. Over the past few years I’ve [Carr] had an uncomfortable sense that
someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural
circuitry, reprogramming the memory”. Much like that of Hal in the movie 2001:
A Space Odyssey, his mind is changing. Right off the bat Carr is connecting to the
readers at an emotional level through the tone of this chilling scene at the
end of 2001. This is a very persuasive technique that Carr utilizes and he
again comes back to the idea towards the end of the article as well. One of the
last things that Carr states in this article is, “I’m haunted by that scene in
2001. What makes it so poignant, and so weird, is the computers emotional
response to the disassembly of its mind: its despair as one circuit after
another goes dark, its childlike pleading with the astronaut-…can only be
called a state of innocence.”
Carr’s main argument is only introduced
through the scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Carr goes onto to explain that he is not the
only one experiencing this kind of feeling; to establish credibility or ethos
he tells us what his friends are discovering as well. Most are literary types,
that claim, “the more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay
focused on long pieces of writing”, now Carr states just after that, “anecdotes
alone don’t prove much”. That small
piece of acknowledgement contributes to the audience seeing him as trustworthy
because he does point out that no, we cant justifiably draw conclusions just
from something a few people “claim” they are experiencing. We still need the
“the long term neurological and psychological experiments that will provide a
definitive picture of how Internet use affects cognition”. Additionally
throughout the article Carr’s ability to incorporate many professional opinions
and be knowledgeable about them also contribute to the overall credibility of
him as a writer. This is a very important and powerful tool that he applies.
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