Throughout history there have been points in time where technology has impacted the ways people did things. In his essay “Is Google Making us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr explains how he thinks the internet is one such development. He states specifically that the internet is having a direct impact on our brains and cognitive processes.
Carr starts off by writing about his personal experiences as well as the experiences of others and how technology has affected them personally. He starts by expressing that although he isn’t becoming any less intelligent, his thought process is changing. Carr tries to describe the effect the internet is having on his mind by stating how he feels when he reads. He writes, “I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” Carr believes this inability to concentrate, stems directly from the internet. Carr then goes on to write how he is not the only one who has noticed something changing within himself. Scott Karp, A blogger who used to read consistently, has now stopped reading books completely because of his lack of ability to concentrate. Bruce Friedman, a blogger, is yet another person who believes the internet has changed his thought process. He told Carr personally that any blog post he reads that is longer than 3 or 4 paragraphs, he just skims over it rather than going in depth with the post.
There aren’t just personal accounts and claims that the internet is changing how people think. Carr writes about studies that have already been conducted that attempt to put some science behind the claim. One of these studies was conducted by scholars at the University College, London. He then goes on to explain the background of the study, mentioning that the study took 5 years to complete. The researchers documented the tendencies of visitors to research sites. The study found that when researching, people had a tendency to skim over articles rather than reading them thoroughly. Once an article was skimmed, the study found, the researcher would move on to another article never visiting the same one again. Carr then introduces the developmental phycologist Maryanne Wolf. He begins to write about her views on the topic stating that, although we may be reading more than in the past, it is not the same type of quality reading we once enjoyed. Wolf believes that this new form of reading may be hindering our ability to delve deep into texts while at the same time being able to comprehend them.
The internet is not the only technological advancement to have had an impact on humans. Carr uses multiple historical examples