What do you do when you meet an unknown word? You Google it. What do you do if you need to find some information quickly? You Google it. We use Google all the time. All we need is to press a button to get the answer to any question. However, can using Google searching engine impact the functioning of our brain? In his article “Is Google making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr raises the question of how the ease of online searching affects our ability of reading and staying concentrated on lengthy pieces of writing.
The main problem addressed by this question is that we may soon forget how to read and to think, thanks to the Internet and its impact on the way we get information, learn, and communicate. Carr says: “I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose” (Carr 1).
Carr is sure that this problem stems from the years he has spent surfing on the Internet. The search engines on Google affected his reading and writing habits and he became a skimming reader rather than a deep and engaged reader. On the one hand, the Internet has been a blessing for us, because within a few seconds of searching with the Google toolbars, the great databases of the Internet will immediately bring the necessary information to us. However, blessing has become a curse because of the way the Internet does it: “My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles… 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 2).
Internet is able to change the way our brains absorb information. Moreover, the quick access to information on the Internet make us feel “annoyed” in reading and “happier” when we can without difficulty browse through without thinking. The human brain has an amazing ability to adapt to the new environment. In his article Carr describes the reaction of the human brain to the changes in technology and practice. Our brains will acquire the same characteristics as an effect that a machine has on society. For example, when the clock was invented, it became very easy to measure time by numbers rather than just by the sun or human activities, consequently we have the phrase “going like clockwork”. The clock became our absolute measurement. People started looking at the clock rather than just their own senses, to decide when they need to start doing activities that are time-sensitive, like eating lunch or going to bed. Furthermore, we are taking on the speed that computers have brought us. Carr states that “Kubrick’s dark prophecy, “as …