RWS 100 Group Work [Carr & Encyclopedia Britannica.

A full version of our work can be found here, notes included.

200 ~ 300 Word Summary

A lot of Encyclopedia Britannica’s forum posts seem to be a slew of replies to either Carr directly or other critics of Carr. For example, Clay Shirky replies to Carr twice, the first time to address his article, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, and the second time in reply to Carr’s reply of Shirky’s reply (confusing, isn’t it). In Shirky’s first reply, he critiques Carr’s generalization of “literary types” as well as Carr’s claim that the internet is impacting the way we read. Shirky presses a counter-argument, saying that the internet has actually brought back reading as an activity -- just in a different way. Shirky also dubs Carr’s worrywarting as a sort of pseudo-Luddism (Luddism is the philosophy/opposition of new forms of technology), and calls it wasted intelligence on Carr’s part.