English 101 Essay#1 - Grade A PDF

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English 101 Essay#1...

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Google- A Helpful or Harmful Resource? Have a question? Google it. Have a problem? Google it. There’s no doubt that the resources of today are helpful, but are they changing the way our minds work? In his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr addresses how the internet is affecting us, and how it’s affecting our brains. There is no doubt that the internet has expanded our research abilities drastically, but is it changing the way our brains work to handle the information? Is google making us stupid, or are our brains adapting to a new form of reading. The internet has relieved us of the hours spent searching for a book for our papers, and gives us the resource in seconds, but Carr wonders if that easy access to information is damaging our brain. The author first tells us that he has taken notice of how the internet is affecting his concentration. He says “My concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages” (337; 2). The reason the internet is changing our concentration patterns, according to Carr, is because we spend so much time browsing the internet, sending emails or watching videos. Our brain is used to such immediate information and expects to be able to absorb the article in a matter of minutes. “My mind expects to be able to take in information the way the Net distributes it” (338; 9). Isn’t reading on the internet just a book copied onto a screen? Not only is the web affecting the way we concentrate, but also how we read it. Reading information online forces our brains to just skim the article instead of reading and absorbing it because of the abundance of information available to us, we try to read as much as possible in a short time frame. As part of a long term study by students at The University College London that investigated online research habits, “found that people using the sites exhibited a form of skimming activity”(338; 9). They found that the subjects of the study would spend a brief amount of time on one site, skim the information, and move on to another site. The researchers

reported that “new forms of ‘reading’ are emerging as users ‘power browse’” (339; 9). Even though we are most likely reading more than the people who lived in the past did, our brains have molded into browsing quickly through the information, not always absorbing it. The internet has only been around for a short period of time, however most users find it easier to browse the internet for a question rather than search for the answer themselves. This shows that, even though we are gaining quicker access to more information, our brains are getting used to having the immediate result and have difficulty searching for an answer. The internet has, no doubt, been helpful for writers, artists, researchers, and even just the teenager wanting to chat with their friends, but there’s no question that most users have grown dependent on it. “The internet […] is subsuming most of our intellectual technologies”(341; 17). The internet is not only a place to send emails or research information, it’s a place to check the time, get directions, calculate, print important information, even make calls, watch television, and listen to music. The internet is “reprogramming us” (342; 19), we no longer depend on all of these pieces of technology separately; the web has given them to us all in one. Our minds are becoming dependent on the internet and its amenities. Seemingly, Google is the all-knowing. You can search and your question will be answered in a matter of seconds with a multitude of URLs to different sites with information. The goal of the staff at Google is to “organize the worlds information and make is universally accessible and useful” (343; 25). The program uses algorithms to extract meanings from searches and spit out results with possible matches to what you were searching for. Research that used to take hours, now takes seconds. “The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people—or smarter” (343; 26). All the information anyone could need can be found through a Google search, but is it making us too dependent on the simplicity of gaining information? Carr says that

we used to be like scuba divers in a sea of words, having to search for hours for the ones we needed, but now we’re like a jet ski skimming on top, easily finding the sources and articles we’re looking for. The internet has made finding the desired information easy, but hasn’t helped in shaping our brains like reading a book would have. According to Carr, the access to the quick information takes away our ability to solve problems by ourselves, gain knowledge by ourselves, and make our own associations. Playwright Richard Foreman said that “we risk turning into ‘pancake people’”(345; 34). In the past, everyone had a unique personality shaped by their interests, but, with the information overload, everyone has evolved into having similar hobbies and interests. Foreman also says that with all the new information, eventually “the most human character turns out to be a machine” (345; 35). Eventually we could have the technology to make machines that are smarter than us. So, the question is, is the Web affecting the way we think? Is Google making us stupid? The internet has definitely molded our brains to be able to absorb more information quicker, and our minds will continue to change with the growth of technology, but is it making us stupid? Perhaps not, it’s just changing the way our brains interpret the information given to us. Access to new information quickly can never make us stupid, but as the way we gain our knowledge changes, so does the way our minds interpret that knowledge....