Technological advancement has a great impact on people’s lives, as it allows easier access to information than ever before. Modern Technology provides a faster, uncontrolled access to search and exchange information. The Internet provides many different sources that make it accessible for people to search and uncover the truth about any topic. In his essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr argues that the instant access to information through the internet shows changes in people’s reading and thinking process. Easier access to information leads people to lose interest in reading lengthy texts, causing them to replace their minds with artificial knowledge. Carr delivers his points successfully throughout his use …show more content…
Carr explains his own experience about losing focus in reading a lengthy text: “I get fidgety, lose the thread… I’m dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle” (314). He uses this example of imagery to show his struggle to the reader and how he has to stay focused on the reading. He also uses pathos to appeal to the reader imagination, as he says, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski” (315). He used to be fully engaged in reading a book or an article, yet due to the internet; he just skims through the reading without going in depth or making connections. His use of personal experience makes it easier to relate to the readers’ imagination of how the internet could have an effect on their …show more content…
Carr provides the reader with different studies and experiments that support and strengthen his argument. His use of many experts from books and research sources allows him to deliver his point to the reader effectively. Carr argues that the way people used to read has changed as more technologies emerge. He uses scientific studies to show that people have the opportunity to read long texts, yet they are more likely to read short articles. Carr quoted Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist, who states that “we are not only what we read, we are how we read” (qtd in Carr 317). This demonstrates that people are looking for shorter text that does not require too much attention and are not time consuming. Also, the study conducted by the University College London suggested that the way people read and think has changed. People are more likely to skim sources instead of reading the whole article or a book: “it is clear that users are not reading online on the traditional sense” (Carr 317). People use online sources as a form of “skimming activity” (Carr 316). They do not read the entire article, but they move from one source to the other, reading “titles, contents pages and abstracts,” to look for relevant information they might need, yet this leads them to lose focus (Carr 316-317). Carr argues that people lose the benefits of reading as skimming through