"The Case for Working with Your Hands"Crawford, Matthew B. "The Case for Working with Your Hands." The New York Times Magazine, 21 May 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?p

Alan Key

Professor Kaur

English 1301

May 26, 2020

The Internet and Our Attention Span

With each new wave of technological advancement, mankind has felt its effect in the ways it changes our day to day lives. The computer and growth of the internet stands out amongst past achievements as we are in the era where these changes are being set in motion in unforeseen ways. Nicholas Carr expresses his personal struggle as a writer within this new era of technology in his article, “Is Google Making us Stupid?” The message he presents is how to adapt and meet this new paradigm shift with an understanding of how past technologies ushered in similar responses from critics. His skepticism and weariness are not baseless as he does not ignore the great things the internet has brought, yet questions what the long term implications may be. His arguments connect coherently through supplementing the personal experiences of his friends and himself with scientific research. When our minds become used to information in small incremental amounts, our ability to deeply focus becomes untrained and not as sharp. Reading long and complicated prose takes practice to be able to connect all of the arguments into a clear big picture, but people with access to the internet will be drawn into the optimized nature of how information is summarized and easy to understand, rather than engage in a novel that requires prolonged attention.

In the article by Nicholas Carr titled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” goes into detail how our increased use of the internet is changing the way we read and process information. In the first part of the article, he uses personal experiences from himself and other writers who have noticed that their ability to deeply focus on reading long pieces of literature has changed. Carr sums up these personal feelings saying, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski” (Carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid?). The ability to instantly access vast amounts of information has negatively affected his attention span and ability to read deeply. He then continues by using examples of how past technologies have changed the way humanity thinks such as the implementation of clocks, the typewriter, radio, and Television. By drawing on more scientific study and data to assert his point, he takes his personal experiences and gives it a more solid basis for argument. The author notes this personal and scientifically studied shift writing, “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence” (Carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid?). Carr argues that we rely heavily on computers but should make the effort to understand how this is changing us and why we need to keep our ability to deeply focus intact regardless of the challenges that new technologies pose.

The internet operates in fast paced bits of information that endlessly flows across the page, this new development of reading and absorbing content affects our ability to deeply focus and shortens our attention span. I think that as a whole our attention spans have been getting shorter and shorter over time. Even while reading the article, I felt my attention slipping and my mind wandering, especially when he wrote about patience being affected. I agree with the points Carr makes, but up to a point. I agree that people have a dependence on technology and the ease of having what you want when you want it. I think the worst of this issue will be some slight impatience. The ideas Carr makes in this article can be compared to our patience to everything in life, for example, getting mad at a red light taking too long. His thoughts can apply to so many different aspects of the fast paced world we live in.

Nicholas Carr presents interesting points as he argues that the internet has changed the way we perceive technology and how it has contributed to the weakening of our attention spans. While he does not necessarily believe that the internet is making us “stupid,” it is affecting our ability to focus on reading long and complicated prose. His article made me reflect on the way my friends and I use the internet and at the end of the day it is a tough question to ponder. This article has helped me question my own ability to focus and has led me to search for ways to improve. Once you identify a problem and face it, you can actively work to fix it. So understanding that I may be impatient at times, I can realize it and remind myself to be patient. The internet has become an incredible tool for learning and communicating, connecting the entire world in a web of information that we can all access in mere seconds. With every new developing technology, to think like Nicholas Carr, one must celebrate the positive aspects but be weary and prepared for the inevitable negative side effects.

Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 23 Jan.

2020,www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/.