Kyle Smith
Anna Wolff
English 100 A
11 February 2010

Reading Response #5

In Nicholas Carr’s Is Google Making Us Stupid?” he is explaining how using the internet has changed the way people read and think and that our minds are beginning to mold to technology. He says this because in the past, he was able easily immerse himself in to a text. When he started surfing and researching on the internet he is finding that he loses concentration while reading and begins to drift off after a few pages. He thinks that this is happening because “the human brain is infinitely malleable.” This means that our brains can change depending on how we use our minds and what we are in the habit of doing to doing. Nick Carr was beginning to get in the habit of the internet giving him information very quickly and without very much intense research or hours of reading. Because he stopped reading books or long articles as much, he thinks that his mind is beginning to be unable to immerse himself in his reading because his mind wanted to get the information quickly and easily. I think that this claim is very important in his article because he is giving a lot evidence that this is actually happening. For example when he is giving evidence from James Olds who is a Professor of neuroscience, Nick Carr says “Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. “The Brain” according to Olds, “has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions.”” Another claim that I think is important to his article is when he says “The process of adapting to new intellectual technologies is reflected in the changing metaphors we use to explain ourselves to ourselves.” This means that when your mind is adapting to a new technology you may begin to think of your mind differently and create metaphors about the way it is working. An example he gives of this is “When the mechanical clock arrived, people began thinking of their brains as operating “like clockwork.” Today, in the age of software, we have come to think of them as “like computers.”” Then he explains that this change, as neuroscience tells us that it goes much deeper than a metaphor and that our brains plasticity adapts at a biological level.

I have mixed feelings on this issue because I agree with Nick Carr that our minds can adapt to technology and we can change the way we think but I don’t necessarily think that technology and the internet is a bad thing. In his article I don’t think he is very clear whether he thinks that we should be using the internet less and reading books and articles more. I think that having the ability to immerse yourself into a text is a good skill to have but I don’t think that I would want to give up the internet which gives you information much faster and more easily. I think we shouldn’t only rely on the internet for research we should also be reading books because I think it is important to be able to, as Carr says “spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose.” But I don’t think we need to completely give up on the convenience of the internet.