Final Draft Carr Paper

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Jill Finney

RWS 100

Mr. Werry

14 November 2014

Carr Response Paper

An avid writer and a well accomplished one at that; Nicholas Carr is known for discussing technology and its affects as well as the extent that the Internet is changing our thoughts. The overall argument presented throughout the paper by Carr is that the Internet and online reading, blogging, surfing and searching are far less thought provoking than reading from a book. He titles his paper,  “What is the Internet doing to our brains?” The Internet is causing us to become distracted, or as Carr states we can find ourselves “drifting” from long texts. In turn this phenomenon is making us as a people, “stupid”, a distinct word Carr uses in the title of the article (Carr, 2008). As a society, we should care about the issue that Carr presents because it starts a whirlwind of debate on whether technology is essentially good or essentially bad. Technology plays a huge role in majority of peoples lives and to make a claim as dramatic as Carr does, it must be further researched and made a priority for everyone. Carr has written numerous books on this 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 examines 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

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chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation”  (Carr, 2008). In this paper, I will discuss the strengths of Carr’s arguments as well as the weaknesses through analyzation of persuasive techniques he uses known as the Aristotelian Appeals of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.

            One of Carr’s arguments is that the Internet, or Web is slowly but surely altering and shutting our brains down. He introduced this thought 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. Support for the main claim that the Internet is changing us is shown through using personal testimonies and anecdotes. Carr states that most of his colleagues 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” (Carr, 2008).  This also contributes to his trustworthiness as a writer because with that small piece of acknowledgement 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”(Carr, 2008). In addition to this, throughout the article Carr’s ability to incorporate many professional opinions and be knowledgeable about them also contribute to the overall credibility of himself as a writer. This is a very important and powerful tool that he applies, so that audiences can see him as a very experienced and dependable writer.

            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. This strategy works with the claim that someone, or something is tinkering and playing with our brains. The scene set

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includes a computer known as Hal stating, “Dave my mind is going, I can feel it. I can feel it” (Carr, 2008), as Dave, an astronaut, is shutting down the computers system little by little. This scene provides an emotional appeal to readers in the audience, despite the fact that Hal is a computer. This can extend the idea that if something is really shutting our brains down slowly, the same fear that Hal the computer is feeling in the scene, can also describe the feeling that we as a society will experience as well. Carr uses this to elaborate on 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” (Carr, 2008). 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 addresses 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, 2008). Carr is able to go full circle with this idea and it provides familiarity for the readers and a place of connection as well. The audience can find themselves becoming attached to Hal, and that accentuates Carr’s idea behind that strategy. To get the audience to feel as though they are Hal, and trying to remove that experience from ever occurring, Carr does very well in placing society in a position to really think about the addiction to technology.

            Throughout the article Carr is also able to utilize past examples to support his overall arguments as well, these are known as precedents. These past examples can emphasize the

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argument that technology is all around us, and despite efforts technology will continue to be a huge part of society and there is no way of denying that. Even as far back as 1882, with the addition of the Malling-Hansen Writing Ball typewriter writing changed as well. Friedrich Nietzsche, a composer of the era used the machine and friends would describe his writing style as “tighter, more telegraphic”, Nietzsche agreed with the statement “our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” Typing on the typewriter as opposed to writing with a pen and paper prose “changed from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style”.  This proposes the same idea that Carr suggests in the very beginning of the article when he stated, “I’m not thinking the way I used to think”, “…it’s changing” (Carr, 2008).  Therefore, through Carr’s use of precedents the audience can relate the phenomena of Web and how Carr believes it is altered our brains to past event and inventions that we know have altered our “wiring” of the brain. This is a really strong technique and can provide places of connections as well as proof through evidence.

            In Carr’s paper What the Internet is doing to our brains: is Google making us stupid? He is able to utilize Aristotelian Appeals and provide multiple examples, known as precedents, to his advantage to sway the audience into his way of thinking. This strength is shown in many instances throughout the paper. In utilizing this strategy, Carr as a result becomes a very persuasive writer and a believable one as well. Carr is able to create a sounds argument with minimal flaws. In conclusion, Carr was able to use the appeals of ethos and pathos to strengthen many aspects of his article and was able to use past examples well to support the argument also. In conclusion, I believe that Carr was able to put forth great arguments in the article due to his ability to incorporate different techniques and strategies.

Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. “What the Internet is doing to our brains: is Google making us stupid?.” The Atlantic. July/August 2008.