Beginning of Class Writing: About Nicolas Carr

For today’s class, you read Carlson, “Nicholas Carr on the ‘Superficial’ Webby Mind,” http://goo.gl/VqyHVm and Carr, “A writer of books, essays, and ephemera,” http://www.nicholascarr.com. During your summary writing during the first ten minutes of class, write what you learned about the book that we are about to begin to read and its author, Nicolas Carr.

Remember to type up your beginning of class writing from Monday and today, and post that writing as comments to their respective blog posts. Since Project Two is due before class on Monday, you might have to scroll down to find the correct place to post your comments.

13 thoughts on “Beginning of Class Writing: About Nicolas Carr

  1. Darien Laurencin

    Facebook, Instagram, Twitter all share something in common, and that is the Internet. Overtime the Internet grew to become one of the most promising inventions of the 20th and 21st century. An author by the name of Nicholas Carr talked about how the impact of Internet and his perspective of the Internet have changed. In the Nicholas Carr short biography it gave reader an incite to life and his accomplishment. In the short biography, “A writer of books, essays and ephemera,” Nicholas Carr had many accomplishments such as, The author of two other influential books, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google (2008), written for The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Wired, Nature, MIT Technology Review, holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.A., in English and American Literature and Language, from Harvard University. In the second article, Nicholas Carr on the ‘Superficial’ Webby Mind,” which was an interview with Nicholas Carr by The Atlantic about his views on the Internet. In the interview Nicholas Carr explained how in the present the Internet is changing the way the human mind it’s shape. He gave negative examples on the Internet being bad. On quotation Nicholas Carr stated that caught my attention was, “Some psychologists believe that the faster we take in information, the more stress we feel. I found that to be true in my own experience.” This caught my attention because as a boy being born into the digital world I had to take in so much information that it feels like my brain have ran out of memory. The constant overflow of information do cause stress on the time having to remmeber evetything you learn wheither it for school, or work. Nicholas Carr also provided in the article a snipit of what is to come when reading his book, The Shallows.

  2. Taylor Marie Hernandez

    Nicholas Carr is a very successful writer. He has received many awards for his many works of writing. Nicholas wrote for The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Wired, Nature, MIT Technology Review, and many other big known companies. Recently, he made a new book called The Shallows and talks about the choices people make about using computers. In 2011 the book won a Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction and a New York Times bestseller. This book has had many reviews and awards. He is know for his many works of writing an continues to be one of the best writers.

  3. Aaron Chen

    Living without social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter may seem really stupid and more importantly horrible but what if we were told that social media is slowing our minds down? Would that change us from using them? Well Nicholas Carr, a very successful writer did. He realized that with the changes in the web, and the advanced technologies that have come up, our brains are slowing down because all we need to do is ask a question on google, and we’ll get the answer. The brain may get the information a lot quicker but the brain doesn’t know where the information came from and the history behind this information. the brain cant possibly just sort out all these small informations without a bigger picture to them. Nicholas Carr also said that the generations now are going to have a much harder time to read printed papers or long essays in magazines because of all the apps and gadgets in the web. Its really crazy to think that the web is slowing down our brains and the fact that we might not even be able to read long passages just from using the web makes me second guess myself before using too much of the web. We are also told that the web and social media can make someone more stressed and if we were to cut all the media off, we’d be much happier. This may be true because social media is a harsh and blunt source of information. After reading his passage, anyone should be cautious when using too many apps and using the web for everything.

  4. Rolando Barredo

    Nicholas Carr discusses how we are in an age of dependency on technology. This is a “transformation” according to Carr, since the computer age has made us less dependent on our brain, and more dependent on the internet. Research requires hard work, but we are depriving our brain of thee skills since we can just look up what we need in google. It is what some people call the “google age.” Computers and the internet are “stealing our literacy made of thinking.” In other words, we are made to read, to write, to think on our own. Now, we would rather listen to e-books, type, and to spend our time online rather than fill our brains’ knowledge banks. Carr says that he hates it when people say that the computer age doesn’t affect them. Carr is 51, and says tat he has only lived half his life in this age, but the effects of the internet still affect. them. If you can make your life simpler, no matter whether it’s new, or it’s something you grew up with, you’re going to use it to your advantage.

  5. alejandra

    Now that we are about yo start a new book name ” the shallow” by the author Nicolas Carr. Carr describe computer era as the era of being independence on a robot. Now that we are used to a computer and the different social medias, we don’t take our time to capture and process all the information we are getting from each of this different sources, that is why we need a back up mind as a note application or any other app because we are no longer able to remember all. That is why he closed all his social medias and try to pull a little of the life we all have left behind back. He had write many articles and few books about this topic that concern everybody in this new computer era

  6. shamach campbell

    Nicholas Carr a successful writer, it his book “The Swallows” talk about how now a days we are too dependency on technology. Carr talks about the “transformation”, it’s a point in which the age of computers have made us less dependent on our brain, and more dependent on the internet. Computers and the internet are making obtaining knowledge too convenient and the more we use it the more its stealing our literacy made of thinking. We are meant to read, to write, to think on our own and to internet slowly takes take away from us. We would rather listen to audible books online and to spend our time on social media sites rather than reading a book and gain something. Carr says that he hates it when people say that the computer age doesn’t affect them. If you can make your life simpler, no matter whether it’s new, or it’s something you grew up with, you’re going to use it to your advantage.

  7. Jean Betances

    What if I told you that using the web and getting quick answers is stressing your brain and reshaping it? Nicholas Carr is the author of “The Shallows: What the internet is doing to our brains” and he states just that. Nicholas Carr has said that ever since he stopped using the internet so often that he has felt Calmer day to day. He also mentioned in an interview for the Atlantic which he used to work for that he noticed that he was losing his ability to concentrate not only on the internet but being able to read long passages and books. He believes that this can affect everyone who uses the internet but especially affect those who have lived their whole life knowing the internet. He became so suspicious of these claims that he has deactivated his social media accounts even though he used to be a person who was very into technology. Carr has written this book not to completely try to destroy the internet but to warn people and get it into the mainstream of the harms that the internet could be having on our brains.

  8. Carlos Villalva

    About Nicolas Carr
    NIcolas Carr has a remarkable resume, with his book and article being deem successful and interesting to read for everyone. The most renowned book he publish and is New York Times best seller is “The Shallow: What is the internet doing to our brain?” He talk about the idea that the internet is not necessarily a good thing for our mind. Such as he stated, when publish an article name “Is google making us stupid?”, where he talks about, that we are to focus and relies to much on google for answer. When the internet, was first release, it was so revolutionize like the printing press, that our society has change itself. This mean that, these revolutionize object has change our society so much that we can no longer go back to what the society use to be, before they were introduce to our society. NIcolas Carr talks in his own experience that he use to rely too much in the internet likes us, for more over a decade, until 2007. He question himself about how much the internet has alter almost every individual, from social network affecting our communication skills and we to distracted to be focus on what is important. He said at that end of the interview “that the faster we take in information, the more stress we feel. I found that to be true in my own experience.”

  9. Edinsson.P

    The article posted by Benjamin Carlson about Nicholas Carr “superficial” webby mind. I honestly agreed with mind idea he has about the social media and the internet having negative in impact in today’s society. I find this to be true in my own life , since I notice that I rather read an article on the internet about technology as opposed to reading book about same topic. I just can not stand the boredom of reading a book . However, the few times i have read book from beginning to end , I felt like i had accomplished some. Compare to reading anything online It does not feel as rewarding.

  10. Alex Feng

    Nicholas Carr is a prestigious writer and author who written for The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Wired, Nature, and MIT Technology Review. In the article of Nicolas Carr on the “Superficial” Webby Mind, it states that internet use is literally alternating our brains. I completely agree with this statement because through personal experience I just look up things I don’t really know and come up with an answer in one second. However, what I should have done was go to a library, borrow a book, and do some research to satisfy my curiosity. I am kind of on the fence when he talks about his ability to concentrate. I, myself, have the ability to concentrate on what game I am currently playing over the internet. However, he somewhat tells the truth about not being able to concentrate or do the things that need to be done such as homework, essays or projects. Lastly, I also agree on his point that we will not be able to turn back our time in society due to technology advances. This is a generation where it involves the internet and phones. Without internet or phones, nobody well children and teenagers wouldn’t know how to spend their time or what to do. Their reaction to no phones or no internet would be ,”I can’t live my life without the internet or phone!”

  11. Reynaldo

    In the article published in The Atlantic, titled “Nicholas Carr on the ‘Superficial’ Webby Mind” written by Benjamin Carlson talks about Nicholas Carr’s book “The Shallows”. Benjamin elaborate on how Carr is a prosperous writer and doesn’t that he believes that the internet is doing harm to our brains. I agree on this statement of the internet damaging the way we use our brain, we tend to just rely on the internet because it’s easier and faster but fast and easy aint alway good. We are lowering our capabilities by just “googling it” we need to start exercising our brain and use it for what it’s meant for. Carr liked the internet when it first started an easy way to gain information but as the internet grew and “evolved” he started disliking it because he started noticing how it was affecting us and not in a good way.

  12. Ryan Karran

    The new book that we will be reading named “The Shallows” was written by Nicholas Carr. Carr is an author who is well known for his work on the Internet’s impact on our brains. He usually focuses on technology and culture while he uses himself as an example as to how he learned to adapt to modern day technology. Carr is a former member of the Encyclopedia Britannica’s editorial board of advisors as well as an executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. Carr also hold a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and master’s from Harvard University. Carr’s overall view of the internet is still to be determined but we can get a clear understudying from one of his later works titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” In “The Shallows,” Carr discusses both the cognitive and historic implications of the brain after being exposed not only to the internet, but to new technological innovations as well.

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