Carr Draft Intro and Body Paragraph

In recent discussions of the benefits and disadvantages of the Internet and its search engines, a controversial issue has been whether search engines such as Google are of any good to our society. On one hand some argue that Google is a great addition to have because it allows for anyone to find large amounts of information on a certain within seconds. From this perspective, the Internet existence is valued. On the other hand, however, others argue that the constant use of search engines is making us less intelligent. Nicholas Carr is an American writer and author of  “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” which goes into detail about how the internet might be affecting us a humans. Carr is one of this views main proponents, he believes that because the Internet is so accessible the human race is not having to work as much to find a certain piece of information because the internet does it for them, making us “stupid”. My own view is that, although the internet might be making us lazier I do not believe that it is making us “stupid”. In this paper I will examine Carr’s claims and strategies he uses to support his argument, and determine whether or not his argument as a whole is persuasive. 

With all of this debating going on about whether or not the internet is beneficial to us as humans, the real question is, how exactly is the constant use of the internet affecting us? In a recent study done by scholars from University College London they tracked the computer logs of two popular research sites, that provide access to things such a journals articles and other types of written information, and documented the activity of its visitors. Carr states, “They found that people using the sites exhibited “a form of skimming activity”…They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they “bounce” out to another site” (Carr). In other words the Internet is starting to not only change the way we read but also the way we think. We no longer read in the traditional way, we now look for key words in a title or text until we find what we need and then we stop reading. Carr uses this strategy to advance his claim because it establishes a strong sense of logos. By using the study done by University College London, Carr’s claim suddenly becomes stronger because he is using sources that can be trusted because the reader can then relate to it because he himself has found that he sometimes has trouble concentrating on one topic for long periods of time. The audience then tends to be persuaded easier because Carr uses an example that is more than just “true”, it is real . Logos in this case does a good job at furthering his central claim because the way that it is used shows a plausible example of his claim in real life.