The document is a paper written by Grant Burton for an English class discussing the essay "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". It summarizes the key points of the essay, including that various researchers have studied how the internet conditions the brain for easy/quick reading rather than thorough reading. This can negatively impact comprehension and writing abilities. However, the internet also provides benefits to research and communication. The document concludes by discussing ways to use the internet positively, such as focusing while reading and reading books, to avoid negative impacts on reading and writing skills.

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Grant Burton
English 101
Alicia Bolton
March 5, 2012
Why Is The World So Google Minded?
Through my twenty years of living in this world there is one quote that always seems to
make me wonder how exactly, “The internet makes the world go round.” Although that is a very
facetious statement, many researchers say that the internet can be the exact source to many
people’s speaking and writing problems in today’s world. In the essay, “Is Google Making Us
Stupid?” various researchers have partnered together to find out what exactly the effects of the
internet has on its users. In this essay Nicholas G. Carr breaks down the exact ways of how the
brain interprets the internet as somewhat of an easy reading guide that conditions our brains to
always avoid thoroughly reading through various writings. This brain conditioning also helps to
aid with problems with interpreting various writings and also loss of focus while reading.
Although the essay is slightly against the internet and the effects of it on its users, it still provides
many different example points of both sides of the argument.The title and main question of this
essay is, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” I agree that the positives of the internet are very
helpful, although I disagree about the negative effects that the internet has on its users, and I
think we could be more proactive towards allowing the internet to negatively condition our
brains.
First, I think if we look at the positives that the internet can provide for many people,
researchers, and businesses. I think without the internet today many businesses couldn’t be what
they are, mainly because many businesses rely heavily upon the internet as a main source of

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advertisement. Also the internet can provide many researchers with various topics of
conversation and materials that can be used for their research in a click of a button from an
internet search engine. Prior to the internet’s existence, researchers would have to spend days
strolling through libraries trying to find informative writings that would pertain to their topic of
conversation, but now all they do is just use the internet as their primary source of research.
Another main use of the internet for everyday people would be social networking, which I think
is one of the most abundantly used ways of communication for many in the world today. I think
as Carr states the subject that deals with these problems with technology is “The, internet, an
immeasurably powerful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual
technologies.” (Carr p. 966).Through E-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and many other social
networking and communication websites, the internet holds the authority for connecting people
all over the world in the most efficient ways.
Although, when many people think of the internet today, they think of a vast source for
communication and information that can be very beneficial in many different instances. These
people need to consider the effects that the internet can have upon our own human instinctive
skills of interpreting and writing text. As Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts
University states, “We are not only what we read but we are how we read.” (Carr p. 964) I think
the idea of what she is trying to explain is that the way in which we read greatly is tied into our
communicative speech processes. Also Friedrich Nietzsche, a famous author’s statement is used
in this essay, “Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” (qtd In Carr
965). This statement was used in explaining the ways in which his style of writing drastically
changed after he first started using a typewriter to write his stories. So as an analogy, Nietzsche’s
typewriter changed his style of writing just like the internet being the world’s typewriter is

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changing the way we interpret text today. In this essay, the author does a great job of bringing up
inferences to various psychologists’ findings through research of the effects of the internet on its
users. By breaking down the way the brain operates,most of these psychologists’ research
provides a substantial amount of information towards answering how the internet is becoming to
some people, “a universal medium and the conduit for most of the information that flows through
our eyes and ears and into our minds”(qtd. in Carr 962).Many of these research studies also
answer the question of how the internet alters our ability to reading and absorbing text. One great
example given in the essay pertaining to this is the inference of a New York newspaper writing
company having a easy-reader link on their webpage that conjoins all their daily news covered in
the paper into paraphrased articles that consist of the main points and arguments, with not as
many supporting details. This, I think, is a great way to quickly be updated on the daily news as
opposed to taking the time to read through the whole paper. The problem with this type of easy-
reading is that our brains condition themselves into wanting an easy-reader guide for everything
that we read but since not every text has a easy-reading version, we skim instead. By skimming
through the text instead of thoroughly reading through it our interpretation of the text can be
altered from the original meaning and that later negatively affects our writing processes.
On the other hand, how can we be proactive against the rising concerns of the internet
altering our natural instinctive reading and writing skills? One way I think we could help to fight
against the internet’s habit of deteriorating our writing and reading skills would be not to be so
lazy and keepingfocused upon the text reading thoroughly through it. Focus is a major part of
writing and especially in reading mainly because if a person is focused on what they are reading,
they will have a better sense of understanding of what the text is presenting to them. Also, being
focused in a reading or writing means that the person will be more interested in what is being

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presented in the text and that directly associates with their understanding of that text’s argument
and purpose. Another great way of being proactive is taking the time to read a book; this helps to
condition the brain’s process to thoroughly read through text.
In conclusion, thinking of the internet’s vast information and all the help that it gives to
people every day I think it is a great tool for success in many different scenarios. Even though
the internet has its flaws or negative aspects that associate with it, I think it can be a great source
for people if they understand how to use it in a way that wouldn’t affect their instinctive reading
and writing skills. I think these the inferences of the negatives that the internet has upon its users
in the essay are very convincing and build a lot of credibility to the overall argument. I feel that
this essay could be directly related to why I, myself, have so many problems with staying
focused in readings and writings. I think that through looking at what the positives of the internet
can consist of, the negative effects that the internet has on its users, and how we can be more
proactive towards allowing the internet to negatively condition our brains are all great ways to
overall making all of us better readers and writers.

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Works Cited
Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid.” The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings and
Handbook.2nd ed. Eds. Richard Bullock, Maureen Daly Googin, and Fracine Weinberg.NewYork:
W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. 961-972. Print.