Londin Edds

EN 102

Response Essay

5 February 2020

Modern Technology Moderate Effects

Modern technology, like the internet, has only moderate effects on the people using it.

This is an issue that Nicholar Carr explores in his essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?.” Carr

argues that the internet, specifically Google, has shortened people’s attention span,

reprogrammed their brains, and is, in turn, creating a less intelligent society of people (313-329).

Carr is incorrect when he argues that people’s minds are being replaced by artificial intelligence

and that the internet has affected people’s ability to deeply understand text; however, Carr is

correct when he argues that the internet has affected people’s attention spans.

People’s minds are not being replaced by artificial intelligence. Carr states, “As we come

to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that

flattens into artificial intelligence” (328). In other words, the more that people depend on and use

computers, the more their brains think like artificial intelligence. As for me, I use the internet all

the time for school or random questions that I do not know the answer to, but my brain is not

being replaced; instead, my intelligence is growing and expanding. The internet is not replacing

society’s minds but is simply allowing people to expand their knowledge.

The internet has affected people’s attention span, but it has not affected their ability to

connect with the text they are reading. Carr believes, “Our ability to interpret text, to make the

rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely
disengaged” (317). According to Carr, the internet has affected people’s ability to deeply

understand what they are learning when reading, and that ability will continue to decrease as

internet usage increases. In my experience, the internet gives me more opportunities to learn

things in different ways. When one looks something up on Google, the search comes up with

thousands, even millions, of things relating to the topic she searched. By having so many

options, people are able to interpret and learn in many different ways; they can connect with the

topic on many different levels, therefore allowing them to deeply understand it.

Although the internet is a helpful tool when it comes to expanding knowledge, it is

harmful to people’s attention span. When discussing a study done in the U.K. testing people’s

attention spans, Carr explains, “They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article

or book before they would ‘bounce’ out to another site” (316). In summary, the attention span of

people when reading articles has decreased as they would only read a few pages before they

moved on to a different website. I can personally relate to a shortened attention span caused by

the internet, specifically during the lockdown in Spring 2020 when I spent a lot of time on the

social media platform of TikTok where the max time of a video posted is one minute. I noticed

that after spending so much time watching and scrolling through those short videos, I could no

longer pay attention to clips that were longer. I used to frequently watch YouTube but after

watching copious amounts of TikTok videos I lost the ability to watch longer clips like Youtube

videos. Despite how helpful the internet is, it does damage people’s attention span.

In Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” she argues that Google and the

internet is taking over people’s minds and making them less intelligent. Carr is incorrect when

she argues that the internet is replacing people’s minds and affecting people’s ability to make
connections with what they are reading; however, she is correct when she argues that the internet

has decreased people’s attention span.The internet is a useful tool that is helping create smarter

people, but it is not decreasing society’s intelligence levels.

 Work cited

Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" They Say I Say with Readings, by Gerald Graff et

al., 3rd ed., New York, W.W. Norton and Company, 2015, pp. 313-329.