“Is Google Making Us Stupid?” of Carr already misleads the audience even before they have read the article with its title. The title pulls in the reader by creating the concept that Google is detrimental to our intelligence, but in the article, he instead argues how the internet is changing how we think instead of our ability to learn.
At the start of the essay, he references the film 2001: A Space Odyssey in order to appeal to the audience, but it does so ineffectively. The film was made in 1968 and has received a great deal of praise throughout its history (source).
While the film has been praised greatly, younger audiences will have a harder time being drawn into an article that is talking about a movie they have not even seen. The gap between the release of the movie and article spans a total of forty years which makes it hard to believe that the new generation has seen this film.
Even though this introduction does not properly entice the audience, Carr does a decent job at explaining the reference he makes to 2001: A Space Odyssey, but a modern movie reference would have appealed to the audience more.
After his rough intro, Carr fails to prove his authority and uses unreliable resources creating a lack of trust with the author. When Carr begins to explain his argument, he comes across as a casual blogger who is not special in any particular way, except for the fact that he thinks that the internet is starting to affect how he thinks.
If the reader were to do some research, they would learn that he had written three books by the time of this article and was writing the very popular blog Rough Type (source). All these examples could have been used in the article for the author to create a sense of authority, but he chose otherwise.
He also lacks strong resources for his writing due to him referencing friends or inconclusive research. In the article, Carr mentions how his literary friends are also noticing the same issues that he has experienced.
While this does prove that some people are experiencing similar issues to him, this does not show that this trend is common amongst many, especially since he does not provide a number for how many of his friends have expressed the same sentiments.
Another source he uses to support his argument, a published study of online research habits, shows that people exhibited skimming activity when using the internet. He uses this to explain why the thought processes of many is changing, but the information and the article itself lacks enough information to affirm that.
Throughout Carrs paper, it is difficult to read it due to a weak and unsteady structure. Throughout the paper, he will bring up previously discussed topics in different contexts which makes the article hard to read and interpret.
He would also talk positively about the internet for maybe a paragraph or two, but then return to how the internet is changing him in a negative light. The lack of a strong opinion could be felt throughout the paper and made it difficult to even understand where Carr stood on the issue.
Even by the end, he provides no argument as to which side he believe, but instead remind the reader of how he is haunted by scenes in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. If he had employed the use of an easy-to-follow format, then it would be easier to understand this paper overall.
