Review Of Nicholas Carr's 'Is Google Making USupid'

Information Overload Nicholas Carr is an author who primarily writes about technology, economics, and culture. Carr’s 2008 piece, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” ironically published in The Atlantic, a magazine that highlights the activity of technology, the internet, and the ever changing cultural trends. As the title of the essay suggests, Carr constantly reiterates how and why the Internet is creating problems for today’s society. He makes references to Google and also discusses other technological advancements throughout history. The ability to access large amounts of data with a simple click of the mouse has become the demise of an Internet reliant society, ultimately transforming the masses into instant gratification, information seeking
From popup windows, chat rooms, blog posts, and links to follow to obtain more details – seemingly offering more but leaving the reader with less. Carr elaborates on this point by making the comparison of a deep sea scuba diver who emerges himself into the ocean to observe the beauty of nature, as he previously engaged in research in the library, walking up and down the aisles, hunting down the appropriate materials to dive into. Now, with the birth of the Internet, the hunting has become more like surveying the scenery. No longer submerged deep within the ocean as Carr states, “Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski” (Carr, 2008). Carr explains it is no longer necessary to comb through shelves of books but to simply access what is needed and jump from link to link. Similar to a rock skipping across a pond, the internet allows the consumer to skim through seemingly endless amounts of information. This convenience however, comes with a price. Marshall McLuhan, media theorist points out that media is responsible for shaping our thoughts, minds, and ability to process details (Carr, 2008). Carr illustrates McLuhan’s point effectively throughout his piece with descriptive examples and elaborates how the Internet has weakened our ability to
Carr states, “My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles” (Carr, 2008). The ability of the human brain to absorb information as quickly as a computer can generate it is highly improbable. This in it of itself proves in fact, that the Internet is making us stupid. The human brain cannot compete with a computer processor. In doing so, the consumer’s brain is only absorbing less amounts of information as it tries to keep up with the speed of the World Wide Web. Carr eloquently identifies with both the young and the old and highlights different aspects of factual information in creative examples to allow the reader to imagine his examples accurately. Carr leads the reader down his intended path, example after example, word by word while stressing that he himself has been a victim of the mental shortcomings. The Internet is a seemingly boundless information highway – unfortunately running at a speed that the human brain cannot contend with. In an attempt to keep up with the ever changing way knowledge is presented to consumers, once reliant upon word of mouth news – which evolved into hand pressed newspaper articles to fire side chats on the radio, the general