by Amanda Revesz

Has the accessibility of limitless information from the internet changed the way we read and write? In “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr tackles this question. Through the use of multiple strategies, Carr explains his idea that our own intelligence is actually becoming artificial intelligence. He urges everyone to reevaluate their ability to learn from and concentrate on a long piece of work. Carr focuses on his audience throughout this article in order to convince them of his thoughts and findings. He relies heavily on evidence from not only his own peers but also from a series of reviews, research, and even pop culture to support his claims. The clear organization of the article also has a large impact on the effectiveness of the essay. All of these elements combine together for a well-structured argument from Nicholas Carr’s point of view.

I believe the targeted audience for this discussion is an older generation of readers. Carr is trying to persuade his readers that there is a similar pattern reoccurring with people’s ability to concentrate and “deep read” while reading a long piece of work. In order to do this, he needed to direct his thoughts to an audience that would be able to relate to what he was experiencing himself. In the article, Carr reflects on his personal experience with reading and confesses, “My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages” (Carr 64). While sharing this personal anecdote, he helps his readers to make the connection between how reading used to be and what it is like now. Young adults and children have grown up around the internet and Google, so this audience would be less likely to connect with what the author is saying. Members of an older audience, on the other hand, would have experienced a time in their life where reading and research was done strictly from books. The crux of Carr’s argument is for the reader to compare their experience with traditional book reading to the new idea of reading and researching using the internet. Carr believes an evaluation of this comparison will further convince his readers of his opinion.

Credibility is a key part to the persuasion of this article. Carr uses well-known and respected sources to validate what he is saying. For instance, using information directly from the Harvard Business Review, Carr writes that, “Drawing on the terabytes of behavioral data it collects through its search engine and other sites, it carries out thousands of experiments a day” (71). This quote intrigues a reader because of the known credibility Harvard has all over the world. A source like this appeals to a reader’s logos because they are able to have an understanding of data that came straight from a reliable source. In the introduction of this article, Carr referred to pop-culture’s ability to interest and grab a hold of the reader’s attention. Using lines from The Space Odyssey immediately makes the article relateable to many of his readers and gives them a sense of where the article is headed without him having to blatantly say it.

Carr uses a strategic structure to guide the readers through this article. He goes from personal examples to more scientific and historical examples, taking only a few paragraphs to do so. After his anecdote in the introduction, Carr goes into detail about the difficulty he has been having reading long pieces of work thoroughly. This allows for the reader to get a hint of what the focal point of the article will be, and it also eases the reader into article. Next, he moves on and explains conversations he has had with his peers about the same occurrence. The transition from his personal account to the indication that other writers are having the same problems authenticates Carr’s argument showing the audience that reading concentration, in fact, is becoming more difficult due to the use of the internet. Lastly, Carr transitions to a number of valid scientific and historical sources to further illustrate to the reader that research and studies are presenting evidence that there is concrete factual information that leads to the disconnect between the reader’s concentration and long pieces of work. The defined structure attempts to engage the reader so that they are hooked throughout the article rather than being deterred by scientific examples right away.

Nicholas Carr is successful in offering a thought provoking argument for readers to question if Google and the internet are making us incapable of concentration while reading a long piece if work. He says that the result of this will be that our population will be less intelligent. The well-thought-out structure of the article is a persuasive technique in itself by guiding the reader into a thought pattern that supported Carr’s ideas. He also presents credible evidence that further pushed the audience into thinking along the same lines as Carr. This article motivates thought about Google in a different manner than most people probably have before.

Carr has a strong belief in his opinion. Throughout the entire article I found myself questioning my own ability to concentrate. Although I find his argument unique and interesting, I think he avoids one significant possibility. What if our limitless access to the internet actually makes us smarter? We can receive virtually any information on a subject with only a few clicks of a mouse. Therefore we have the ability to learn more information than anyone in the history of the world has had access to. By adding in his opinion to this side of the argument, Carr could have made his argument even more persuasive.