Analysis 2

EN1420
Analysis 2.1
07/07/14

The essay “Does the Internet Make You Smarter?” talks about how the internet has evolved from classic print and how it affects people in today’s society. The author talks about what people have the capability to create using the internet and electronics. The author also talks about the mediocre things that are being published on the internet. Throughout the essay the author talks about the issues that society came upon when the first printing press was created and how it is similar to what we are encountering today. Going along in this essay the author brings up how there are things that get released that can help people of today and there are also things created that aren’t as beneficial to society. He goes on to say that what is created that can benefit us takes much longer for the widespread of it than the time it takes for the widespread of something less important.
1. The claim for this piece is the author is asking whether or not the use of the internet is making us smarter. After reading the essay, I would have to agree with the author that the internet isn’t making us dumber but it isn’t necessarily making us smarter either. In order for people to become smarter or more knowledgeable they would have to put in the time and effort. So if someone doesn’t put in that effort to learn something than they can’t expect to become more knowledgeable.
2.
a. The warrant made in this essay isn’t a very clear one. The author never clearly states in the essay whether or not he believes the internet is making us smarter. He goes on to explain that there are a lot of things that the internet allows us to do however, when comparing between things that are beneficial and not so beneficial, the things people create with the internet that aren’t very beneficial tend to catch on a lot quicker in society.
b. The backing the author provided in this essay is mentioned on the second page. The author brings up a website called Patientslikeme which is used to accelerate medical research by getting patients to publicly share their medical issues, was created in 2008 and doesn’t have near the amount of traffic such as YouTube. People are more comfortable to share to the world something dumb they did than they are to share medical issues. The author also mentioned that erotic novels were available 100 years before we got scientific journals.

3.
a. The support that the author mentions in the essay came from when printing first became known worldwide. He brings up the issues surrounding religion and what had occurred when different copies of the bible were released. He also mentions that there were claims that if the printing press was not controlled then it would lead to chaos and dismemberment of European intellectual life. This turned to be true as print fueled the reform of the protestant religion and in turn destroyed the church’s pan-European hold on intellectual life.
4. One of the qualifiers I found in the reading was in the second paragraph. The author was talking about how amateurs are creating a lot of mediocre things to put out on the internet which end up leading to people questioning the intellectuality of society. He talks about whenever there is an increase of freedom to create or consume media it always creates a sense of alarm in people stuck in an older generation.
5. The author did not really put in any forms of rebuttal throughout the essay other than when he was talking about a sense of alarm from older generations and the creation of mediocre material coming out in the media.
This piece I felt was effective towards its readers based on the information provided. The author talked about how history has shown that when more and more freedom is allowed for creating or consuming media then there will most likely be uproar on the subject matter. The author also talked about how there is effort required for learning anything.