Reading Response #5: "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, he stresses that the internet is the changing the way our society is reading, writing and do research. He is claiming like Thompson, that the internet has been a very good influence in our society by how it has improved people’s ability to write compared to the past and how great communication has been, but people like Carr have notice that the more time they spend on the internet, the effect of the internet has taken a toll on their ability to read long passages and how their style of writing is changing. Lately, I have notice, not just me but others around me had a hard time trying to read an article like Carr’s because of how long the article was. They felt not wanting to read the article because of boredom and the need to change in pace. Carr’s evidence of his claim where he wrote, “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or print.” This is showing that we as a society, is losing the ability to read because of how much we use the internet and how it is changing our ability to read something. I have to agree that we as a society, is having such a hard time trying to read, a point that needs emphasizing since so many people believe that reading is very important in our daily lives and how in the past we were able to read a large book like the Bible and not have any problems with it. Because of this new generation, the internet has become this great phenomenon where reading a text or article has become so difficult that the internet has to take that text or article and make it very short and to the point for us to truly understand what it means. The reason behind the internet having “shortcuts” is of how our brain had to adapt to this technology that before was foreign to our brains. The internet was meant to make many things much more efficient and immediate for our usage that this may be weakening our capacity for deep reading. Not only has Carr notice this but this is a similar issue with Birkerts and how technology has affected our ability to read anything. According to James Olds, a professor of neuroscience who directs the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University says, “the brain has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions.” This explains why our brains, when applied to something so new like the internet, has to reprogram to understand the information being gathered from the internet and taking it all in. Our brains is changing environments from reading something from print to something digital like the internet that it has to adapt to function and understand well. Because of the internet containing so much data and information happening all over, it has become so fast paced that our brains needs to keep up with this rapid change and keep changing. I agree with Carr on this issue because my experience in using the internet so often in my life confirms it. When I’m on the internet, I constantly have to do something new whether it is reading the news, checking my e-mail or going on Facebook to chat with my friends, I realized that my brain desires something different every moment I’m on the internet and not the same old thing every single time.