Alex Schlack
Chris Werry
RWS100
November 21, 2014
Entering The Conversation Final Paper
When the Internet was invented, it had one of the biggest universal impacts on society. The Internet exceeded everyone’s expectations of what it could accomplish, growing and expanding as new technological advancements have developed. It has become one of the most powerful aspects of our everyday lives, that there has been dependence on Google for information, and social media for networking. Nobody would argue that the Internet hasn’t remodeled our everyday life, but the main discrepancy is whether the Internet is a positive or negative innovation. There are various conflicting views on whether the Internet has beneficially affected human cognitive abilities, for example, the two writers Clive Thompson and Nicholas Carr. Clive Thompson wrote an article called “Public Thinking,” where he discusses how the Internet has positively affected our brains. According to Thompson, this vast increase in public writing inspired by the Internet is an important change for individuals, and that it ultimately clarifies our thinking process, generate ideas, and improves our memory. Then Nicholas Carr on the other hand tends to think a little differently. Carr wrote the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” where he disputes Thompson’s claim. According to Carr, there is a downside to all the reading and writing on the Internet. Carr states that the way we perceive things, our concentration, and our writing has been hindered because we have adapted to this new “skimming” type of comprehension from the Internet. My argument happens to fall more on the positive side of the spectrum, agreeing more with Clive Thompson and his theory that technology is bettering society by encouraging greater cognitive thought, the ability to relay mass amounts of information, and coherent writing. Taking both sides into conversation, I will further analyze each author’s view and then provide my own opinion on how the Internet affects human thinking.
“Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words, now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski.” In the Article, “Is Google making Us Stupid”, Carr fuels the fight against the Internet, and utilizes various rhetoric strategies such as pathos, prolepsis, and exemplification to thoroughly explain his position and prove his point. In Carr’s main claim, he believes that the Internet itself slowly deteriorates our cognitive thought and takes away our ability to focus on long passages; the skills we have learned throughout our time in school over the years. Carr provides lots of factual evidence from scientists, talking about how the brain evolves from reading books and obtaining knowledge, but as the Internet continues to grow, books are starting to become obsolete. Carr thus voices that people today have become way too reliant on the Internet therefore disabling our brain from maturing, because according to him people only use the Internet to find answers instead of trying to learn. For an example, a kid cannot learn just by sitting and starring at a computer, thy must be in a learning environment such as classrooms. Carr even admits that he refers to the Internet when searching for information because he knows it is primary and most convenient source to resort to. And he also says that sometimes he cant even read a whole paper without getting somewhat distracted or off track as well. At a point in the article Carr mentions two bloggers, quoting them saying how they have noticed a significant shift in their cognitive thinking due to the immense amount of daily reading and writing done online. This idealizes Carr’s really good use of exemplification, as it shows that this change is a reoccurring effect happening to everyone, and its even more so convincing hearing it from bloggers who are most familiar with the Internet. Carr also inputs personal anecdotes and touching life experiences to further make his argument more effective. But although Carr’s claims and overall argument seem pretty promising, there are others who tend to disagree, such as Clive Thompson.
Clive Thompson is a writer and journalist from Canada, and his views deviate form that of Carr’s. Their arguments are actually polar opposites of one another. In the article that he wrote, “Pubic Thinking,” Thompson discusses how technology further develops our writing skills and cognitive thought and is an improvement to our society. Thompson provides various sub-claims throughout his work that support his overall argument. Them being, that the Internet clarifies our thinking processes, creates a vast increase in writing, and improves a person’s actual writing skills by granting them with an audience. Thompson stresses and focuses a lot on how daily writing is crucial in fostering the growth of our brains. The more people read and write on a daily basis, the more information that can be stored and relayed. And it is proven that illustrating words whether it is on a piece of paper or typing on the computer, as you are writing you are clearing your thoughts and sharpening your comprehension. Another point that Thompson asserts is how much daily writing has increased. Today, there are numerous diversified websites with the infinite amounts of information about any topic of subject, and a mass variety of social media apps such as Twitter and Facebook with opportunities for people to blog anything and communicate with their piers. Thompson even incorporates statistics that have exemplifies how much the writing level has drastically escalated compared to before when the Internet wasn’t invented. Lastly, Thompson talks about a new phenomenon that social scientists like to call, the “Audience Effect.” The Audience effect is a shift in an individual’s performance when they know others are watching. Whether someone is posting a Facebook status, tweeting, sharing an essay, even commenting on a photo, or whoever the audience may be, forces us to think more precisely and make deeper connections. It’s having that audience, people who judge your work that composes us to want to show off our writing talents. Its just as if a sports team played without any fans, there would be nothing pushing them to perform at their full potential. And the Internet happens to create it’s own built in global audience. After reviewing both Thompson’s and Carr’s perspective on this topic, it has lead me to my own personal argument.
After fully analyzing both arguments, I have come to my own conclusion on what I believe. To me, both writers’ articles were both very strong in providing a clear claim, and specifically used different rhetorical strategies to back that claim up with a variety of evidence. Even though I think there is some truth to both altercations, I have to learn more toward what Thompson’s belief revolves around, that technology including the Internet is transcending society to a whole new intellectual level. I do recognize that there are indeed some negative side effects on the Internet, yet I still stick to my guns that Internet’s positive benefits outweigh the negatives. People, who think otherwise, mostly use examples such as television and video games to their defense. A lot of the public is against technological devices, say that starring at a computer for too long, watching television, or playing video games for a long period of time can kill brain cells and is considered unproductive for your cognitive thought. But in reality, you can find something wrong with anything. In my personal opinion, the Internet can have be harmful and hinder your concentration on certain things as well as your memory, but only if you abuse it. For example, maybe if people didn’t overuse the Internet and other technologies for pointless reasoning, some of the negative accouterments Carr mentions possibly wouldn’t event transpire. I am an 18 year old teenager who was born during an era of technological advancements so I have been surrounded by technology my whole life and have had first hand experience with all kinds of it. I have been there when I would play video games for hours on end, or watch Netflix on my computer. After a certain period of time, I would feel brain dead. And ever since the smartphone came out and every teenager in the world bought one, I felt the same effects because everyone was latched onto his or her phone like white on rice. I have noticed a difference in my memory and feel that is has gradually declined as the years gone by, but that is nothing compared to all the beneficial contributions the Internet has made to my life. One of the main reasons why I adore the Internet is because of how much I learn. Yes, there are lots of bad websites that are inappropriate or contain false information, but I find all that stuff irrelevant to the argument because you would never come across all that if your soul intentions were to utilize the Internet for genuine purposes. The Internet always seems to assist me in various situations such as reading online books, watching informative videos, studying for tests, networking and communicating with friends, and researching unique topics. This is why I agree with Thompson for the most part, because I have seen myself accustom to new styles of writing, and also seen my cognitive thought processes evolve as well. The Internet for me has been a major aspect of my life, and has also been a major addition and supplement to my success. I think the invention of the Internet has revolutionized the whole world, and despite its minor drawbacks there are just a handful of people that are oblivious to the how it really aids their everyday life like Thompson underlines in his article.
There is one thing that nobody’s views deviate on, and that is that the Internet has influenced our technological ideals, reshaped our cognitive behavior, and writing abilities. But there will always be controversy about whether those alterations are good or bad. For instance, Thompson believes that the Internet has exceptionally boosted our human thinking abilities, help us generate ideas, and increment the overall amount of writing. Whereas, Carr discords that the Internet deteriorates human thinking and diminishes our concentration. There is validity to both of their arguments, But I do lean more to Thompson’s theory about the benefits of the Internet form personal experience. All the negatives side effects that Carr acknowledges, to me, only occur if the Internet is abused and exhausted. The Internet is a special tool and source for people to resort to, considering all the accessible features it possesses.
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