"Is Google Making Us Stupid?" [Question Mark?]

Gerald Lappay

RWS 100

Professor Werry

October 29th, 2014

Stupid Google? [Question Mark]

Overall Argument: While the internet and other pieces of technology are super helpful, there are some noticeable downsides that Carr addresses. They aren't life-threatening. More like "quality-of-life" threatening.

1 Main Claim: "I've been spending a lot of time online ... The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer ... But that boon comes at a price ... The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing." (Carr)

Strategy 1: Authorities & Big Names: 2001 Space Odyssey. A movie that I personally dislike, but nevertheless helps the reader connect to his article, especially when it comes to the de-wiring of HAL in comparison the the "de-wiring" of Carr's brain.

Strategy 2: Identification: This is a big one. I'm going to highlight Nietzsche for 1) I lost a few points on my Philosophy midterm because of this [expletive] and 2) because Carr's narrative/identification of the typewriter story works out pretty well. The typewriter helped Nietzsche. A lot. But at what cost? "His already terse prose had become even tighter, more telegraphic ... Under the sway of the machine, writes the German media scholar Friedrich A. Kittler, Nietzsche's prose "changed from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style."" (Carr)  

Strategy 3: Metaphors: Another big one. There's a lot of metaphors in this article, and I'm going to highlight a few: "When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is recreated in the Net's image. It injects the medium's content with hyperlinks, blinking ads, and other digital gewgaws." The Internet ... it's becoming our map and our clock, our printing press, and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV." (Carr)