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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