Is Google Making Us Stupid? Critical Analysis
Google is an internet search engine that allows users to find information on any given topic. Google was created in 1996 and has been one of the fastest growing sites ever since. Google makes it possible for any information that is needed to be available at the click of a button. Some people think Google is the best thing since sliced bread, but Nicholas Carr has another opinion. Personally, Carr thinks it could be dangerous to our minds having so much technology at our fingertips. If we go back to the early days, when the Internet was not available, people had to research deeper than they do now.
They spent hours and hours in a library, searching through books and newspapers. As time progressed, society started developing and new inventions were made. Friedrich Nietzsche started using a typewriter after his vision started failing, and his writings began to change. He went from “arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style” (Carr 636-67). Frederick Taylor “created a set of precise instructions” that would have “maximum speed, maximum efficiency, and maximum output” for factories to use around the world (Carr 638).
Taylor’s “system” made factory’s productivity soar. With these new ideas and inventions, the world began to change and now has come to a place where everything is relied on by the Net. “It’s becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV” (Carr 638). Carr relates to the changes the Net brings to our lives. He says, “the Net is becoming…the conduct for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind” (634).
He has stopped doing all the hard, time-consuming work that was once required to do as a writer. Using the Internet is the easy solution to finding out anything you need to know and Carr believes it is changing how his mind focuses and takes in information from any articles or essays he reads. The amount of time that a person stays on the Internet could have a negative effect on them. A person searching for information on the Net should limit themselves to a certain amount of time on it.
Moderation is the key to protecting yourself and your brain from becoming completely dependent on the Net. Carr even confesses that he spends more time on the Net now than he ever has. Obviously, the Net is not completely awful. It helps find information so much faster and has articles so much easier to read. But, if we let the Internet reteach our brains how to think then we will have a problem. Carr is basically warning us that if we do not moderate our time on the Internet then the Internet will begin to control our mind and thoughts.
