Does Technology Affect Our Brain?

In his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Nickolas Carr-an author wh0 mainly writes about technology, culture and economics-argues that technology is changing our minds and that it negatively affects the ways we process information. Like the title advocates, Carr frequently reiterates how and why technology is taking over the human mind. The article is effectively persuasive because he uses personal experiences to show that people can lose concentration because of computers, disapproves the ideas of the founders of Google, and cites scholars who criticized technological advancement and had similar arguments ingrained with relatable analogies and imagery. Carr does this to convince his readers and show them how technologies and internet have a huge negative impact on the human mind.

Carr uses personal experiences to foreshadow the significance of his loss of concentration. Carr discusses that even as a writer, his mind struggles to keep concentrated on a book. He censures and blames the internet for his mind’s struggle and describes it as, “the perfect recall of silicon memory.” By this, Carr means that we take in information from the Internet without taking the time to understand and process information. The Internet takes away the time to fully understand information. In addition, processing information requires understanding and understanding information strengthens our way of interpreting information and use it in a more efficient way.  For instance, Carr uses an example of scuba diver verses Jet Ski to show that he skims articles instead of fully getting deep into the significant parts of the articles. Furthermore, after seeing many other people struggle to keep focused on a book without “getting fidget, losing the thread or looking for something else to do”, Carr realizes that “the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind.”

Moreover, Carr discusses that the founders of Google wanted to create Artificial Intelligence and believed that the quicker we get information, the more beneficial we can be. Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google, stated that “if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.” However, Carr argues that reading a text thoroughly without using skimming activities will promote the knowledge we obtain from that text. He says that “the last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.” Carr is more convincing because companies do not help us benefit from information directly linked to our brains but instead help themselves gain more profit and expand their businesses by advertising their service instead of giving us useful information. Having information directly linked to your brain is taking away our thinking process and we are better off to spend hours on a book and take in meaningful information.

            Carr cites scientific studies and scholars who had similar beliefs and skepticism about technology as he does. He examines- and later finds out- that Socrates feared people will depend on written words, instead of carrying knowledge or wisdom inside their heads. He states that people will “receive a quantity of information without proper instruction” and “[fill] with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.” By this, Carr means that most people will read too much information online without fully learning and getting insightful thoughts and massages. The more people spend less time on books, the less knowledge they will obtain from them. This proves Carr’s point that the internet is changing the way we process information.

In addition, Carr argues that internet is changing how we read and interpret text or information. He examines neurological and psychological experiments performed by scholars to back it up and show how internet use affects cognition. He reviews a research conducted by scholars from University College London which suggests that we might change the way we think and read articles. The scholars scrutinized the behaviours of visitors to two popular sites, finding that most of them favored using skimming activities to read those articles so they can read and comprehend them faster. As technology progresses, skimming through articles became a routine for many people. Because technology offers too much information, spending more time on articles or information became a struggle. People do not want to focus on one article while many others are available; therefore, understanding information thoroughly is lost. The scholars found out that people who use these sites read no more than one or two pages of a book or article. To prove their point, the scholars came to a convincing conclusion, which is that “users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.” Their conclusion demonstrates the lost of traditional reading-reading a book from page one to last-through technology. And the easy availability of technology gives more information to people, in which they struggle to choose one type of information or article and understand and process efficiently.

Carr’s article is convincing because Internet and technological advancement really influence how our brain functions and trigger distractions.  Carr’s essay persuasively shows why and how technology and Internet is affecting our brain and backs it up correctly with personal experiences full of insightful arguments, condemns the founders of Google’s ideas, and cites scholars who had similar criticism of technological advancement. 

           

           

Work Cited

Carr, Nickolas. (July 1, 2008). Is Google Making Us Stupid. Retrieved December 4, 2013 from: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/