Clay Shirky Summary

Karina Torres 

Warsan Artan

Tony Pineda

In “Does the Internet Make You Smarter?” Clay Shirky looks back into time when the movable type was invented. People saw this new technology as something that could take apart intellectual life but actually did the complete opposite. Our cognitive abilities are so great that spending 34.5 hours a week watching television does not affect us. Even when television became popular people still spent more time watching television than actually reading. Shirky argues that the Internet actually “restores reading and writing as central activities in our culture” because unlike just sitting and watching television, people read and write while using the Internet. He also states that “there's lots of dumb stuff online—there is, just as there is lots of dumb stuff in bookstores” which shows that just because some people have a negative view of the Internet, it does not mean everything about it is bad. 

Carr, publisher of the text “Is Google Making Us Stupid” has an opposing view from Shirky. While Shirky decides to support the position of how the internet benefits us, Carr believes that it’s hurting us. Carr emphasizes how the internet is affecting our cognitive abilities for concentration and contemplation. He sees the internet as diminishing our mental capabilities and in an essence taking a step back from progress. Shirk provides contradicting views that states how the internet opens our mind more, permitting us to expose ourselves to reading and writing better than before. 

Both of these texts do a good job at providing well supported and different views on how the Internet is might be benefiting us or affecting us.