Carr's Second Body Paragraph

Continuous use of the Internet, in Carr’s point of view, can be seen as very dangerous  because distracts us and affects us in the long run. In “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr introduces Scott Karp, an avid blogger. Karp states, “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader” (Carr).  Due to his constant use of the Internet Karp has had trouble staying focused on long texts, and because of this he has stopped reading books. He believes this happened not because the way he reads has changed but the way he thinks has changed. A story similar to Karp’s is that of Bruce Friedman. Friedman, a faculty member of the University of Michigan Medical School and blogger about the use of computers in medicine, also believes that the Internet has changed his mental habits. Things like reading a blog post longer than three or four paragraphs and reading War and Peace have become a true struggle for him. Friedman has adapted to skimming through large texts and no longer reads the whole thing. Carr uses Karp and Friedman as examples in order to appeal to the readers emotions by the use of pathos. Using pathos in this case works because it shows a true life example of two very intelligent men who now, due to the Internet, can no longer read large texts and have trouble concentrating on one topic. Carr used the strategy of pathos in order to be able to appeal to the reader in a more emotional way. Therefore his audience tends to be persuaded much easier by Carr’s argument since they are emotionally hooked. Including pathos as a strategy in his text does a really good job at extending his central claim because it grabs the readers attention and shows them how the use of the Internet has affected these two scholarly men and in that case can affect anyone.