Is Google Making Us Stupid?

 From the perspective of Nicholas Carr, Google has contributed to the change in reading styles we have seen in young adults.  Carr quoted that even though, “the web has been a godsend to me as a writer,” he feels as if, “someone or something as been tinkering with my brain.” This article really opened my eyes to how much young people rely on the Internet, and how this is changing the way we read.

I did not have as many difficulties reading this essay as the others we have read. I think one of the reasons it was less difficult was because I was interested in the topic we were reading about. When you get an article that doesn’t interest you the slightest bit, it is much easier to get distracted. It is funny that that thought came to my mind because that is what this article is all about: how the Internet, or Net, is “chipping away at the capacity for concentration and contemplation.” I was fascinated to read that some writers, like Scott Karp, confess that he has “stopped reading books altogether.” I guess it is hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that our minds are changing the way we read articles and books. The essay explains how people are not taking their time when they read anymore. They tend to skim it and scan over the article as a whole rather than focusing on the details that lie within. As hard as it is to admit, I have to say I think I have fallen victim to this. Not that this is an excuse for it, but teenagers seem to be getting busier and busier. It is sometimes easier to just get the big picture of the article and not focus so much on the little details. Websites have contributed to this change in reading style as well. Most websites have links you can click on that take us to another site and then another site. Five clicks later and the next thing you know you are looking up new cell phones instead of reading about Shakespeare.

Another reason I found this article easier to read was the lack of challenging words. When I came upon a word I did not know, it was usually easy for me to use context clues to figure out what it meant. There were two lines that really caught my attention in this article. The first line is talking about how we don’t explore articles as deep as we once did. “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” For me, those two lines really sum up this article nicely. The other fact that really surprised me, but now that I think about it is very true, is that newspapers and magazines are shortening their article to keep readers attention. They are now competing with the Internet for people’s attention.