After reading
Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid” and analyzing his rhetorical
strategies in my essay, I found it very interesting to read some reviews people
said about Clay Shirky and his writing. 3 reviews in particular by Nicolas Carr
himself as a response to someone’s post, Matthew Battles, and Michael Gorman
are all noteworthy in such a way that I will be discussing them in my paper.
The
first review I read by Nicolas Carr, I was able to undoubtedly relate and agree
to. He claims that Shirky even admits that the use of the Internet is not the
first time in history that our technologies have changed the way we think. So
why is this the breaking point that makes us all worry about our brains being
recomputed? Carr continues by saying that the human mind was made through
evolution to adapt to anything, even if it may be for the worse. He says Shirky
is just an optimist, which is clear through the use of his religious terms
describing the net. The use of religion makes Shirky less credible, which I
agree with. We should continue to be skeptical. What I found most persuasive with
this post is that he took the risk to challenge the way Shirky analyzes the
document he uses from Maryanne Wolf. He does so in such a way that allows the
reader to understand the deeper meaning of the quote that Shirky neglects to
understand. Carr says, “Wolf was not saying that deep thinking is
indistinguishable from deep reading.” He furthermore explains that “deep
thinking can take other forms than deep reading, and one of these other forms
of deep thinking are, I fear, also at risk because what they share is a
requirement for sustained, undistracted concentration.”
The
second post I read was from Matthew Battles. Battles uses the posts of others
to push him to feeling like he needs to “throw some deep history at all of
this”. He believes that humans are so developed as a species that reading is
only a small part of what makes us who we are and successful. The media
shouldn’t be counted as a threat for our species because printed books as well
as the alphabet change the way we think as well. This post was really
convincing to me because it is true that we can just adapt to this change like
we have done all the rest. It was a really easy post to connect to because when
I grew up I was constantly being changed by the things I was learning which all
took a role in forming me into the person I am today.
The
last post I analyzed was by Michael Gorman. He takes a different approach to
the matter, which I like. He feels offended that Carr is taking the joy away
from technophiles who are excited with the way the Internet has progressed us.
He uses the Webster’s definition of “learn” to provide to Carr that the
Internet can be apart of our learning lives without a problem. Additionally,
advertisements have never been more productive because the Internet is the
perfect place to ensure the company is getting their money’s worth paying the Internet
for them to put their name and services out there. I found this very persuasive
because in fact, the Internet does provide a richness of information to our
lives. When I need to know something or look something up, the Internet
provides me with thousands of links in just seconds that can provide me with
the information I want to know which is far more efficient than books could
ever provide because of time purposes.
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