Week 6 – Wed. Oct. 6th

Homework Due Wed. Oct. 13th

**NO CLASS MONDAY**

  1. Read “Is Google Making Us Stupid” by Nicholas Carr and write response to the questions in a comment below.
    • What did you think of this text? Explain! Don’t worry if you don’t like it, you won’t hurt my feelings! Be honest! 
    • What is it mostly about? Write a 2-3 sentence summary. Be specific. Refer to the text itself. Use quotes even! 
    • What is the genre of the text? What is the tone?
    • Who do you think is the intended audience of the piece? Who is meant to read this text?
    • What do you think is the purpose of this text? Why do you think the author wrote it?
    • So what does Carr think, is Google making us stupid? How does he explain it? 
    • Now what do you think? Do you agree or disagree?  

2. Find 2 sources for Project 2. Prepare to share key information in class.  Write down your sources in a comment below. Make sure to write the COMPLETE bibliography information for the source if you can!

3. Look carefully over our discuss on how to come up with strong research questions. Do some brief background research on your topic. Maybe read the Wikipedia page on your topic or see what Google says when you first search your topic (these will not be your sources or your information, but will help you get thinking!) Think about using who, what, where, when, why and how to help you get your questions started. Remember the questions cannot be too broad or too specific. They should help you figure out where you are going to go with your research! As you come up with questions, write at least 5 of your research questions on this form

Research Questions

Come up with 5-8 Research Questions for your project!

! 

10 Comments

  1. WaldyG08

    I think that this text was interesting to read. I like how the author used multiple examples to further support his claim. The text “Is Google Making Us Stupid” is about the negative consequences of having a search engine that can answer a huge number of questions at the touch of a button. One of the effects that the author Carr talks about is not being able to focus on long readings anymore. In the text he refers to Bruce Friedman who is a blogger in the research of computer in medicine he said “I now have almost lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print” This helps further prove Carr’s point on how we are getting comfortable with having to read short sentences to find the information we are looking for. The genre of this text is a informative narrative with a formal tone. I believe the intended audience is anyone who depends on google to find information to answer the questions they have. The purpose for him writing this piece is to tell the users of google that using google can lead to not having good reading skills and less focus when reading a literacy piece. Carr thinks Google is making us “stupid” because the media and technology removes the purpose of having to read a full article of what the user has searched and narrows it down to a short summary. In the text it says ” They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would bounce out to another site” when describing the online search habits of scholars at the University College London. This shows the attention span that the students have when using online research for their studies. I would say I agree with the authors claim on is google making us stupid because he gives strong evidence on how it is. Google takes out the effort of searching for information in a database. Technology is making tasks easier for us which means that we don’t have to put in as much effort as we used to.

  2. Justin

    this text was fun to read because I like how the author used different examples to boost his claim The text shows the negative consequences of having a search bar do everything but One of the effects that the author talks about is not being able to remember long readings. In the text, he quotes Bruce Friedman who is in the research of computers of health he said “I lost the ability to read article on the web or writing” The genre of this text sounds informative that has a direct tone. the intended audience is people who use Google all the time to find information that can be self tough or learned The purpose of his writing is to inform people that google would impact people’s reading skills and hurt their focus while reading. Carr claims that Google is making us “stupid” because technology removes the purpose of reading a full article. I can somewhat agree with the author’s pov on his piece because he provides great claims that Google takes out the point of searching for information in the reading.

  3. Jasmin Castro

    1. I found the tex boring because it felt like I was reading an article about a topic I don’t find interesting.
    2. The text was about Nicholas Carr discussing how the internet does not help people at all. Nicholas Carr uses Bruce Friedman’s words when he says, ” I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb longish article on the web or in print,”. He also uses how the internet has changed his mental health habits. Nicholas Carr goes on further discussing the negative impact the internet has on people by saying how they can search what they want to learn but it won’t help them when it comes to the long run or remembering what they learned.
    3. The genre is persuasive essay and the tone is formal.
    4.The intended audience for the piece could be anyone in my opinion. I think this because everyone uses the internet to take shortcuts and he wants people to realize that Google is not actually helping you learn but actually making you dumb.
    5.Nicholas Carr purpose for the tex is to make people realize that using Google to help you find what you need to know won’t help you in the long run and everyone will get use to those bad habits of depending on Google to help them instead of actually learning and improving.
    6.Yes, Nicholas Carr thinks Google is making us stupid based on evidence he used in the text to prove what he wrote as his title.
    7. No, I feel like Google is not making us stupid but it is getting us use to bad habits of taking shortcuts.

  4. Ahmed Shah

    I think that this text is really interesting because it tells us about how people found ways to make tasks easier and how people became lazier because they had to put in less effort than before.
    It is mostly about technology advanced as time passed and how it had an effect on people for example before people used to read books to gain information about a certain topic but now that there are search engines available, they just search it up and read a little bit about it and they find their answer. They don’t have to read the whole article which shows that people are getting lazy. They try to find easier ways to find the answer in a small period of time.
    The genre of the passage is informative and the tone is .
    The intended audience is the people who use Google or any search engine to find information rather than reading books.
    The purpose of the text is to tell people how technology is making people really lazy. People try to find the easier way out instead of taking their time.
    The author that Google is making us stupid because it removes the purpose of people reading one full article. People just read a little bit of it and then go to a different one. Articles are meant to be read fully but people don’t do it. In the article, it states that “They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would bounce out to another site”.
    I agree with the author because usually, that is what people do when they want to find information about something specific. People read a little bit of the article and if they don’t find the answer after reading 1 page then they go to a different article. They try to find an easier way out. They want to do it in as little time as possible.

  5. Adrian Bucko

    I think that this text was okay so to speak, I felt lost a few times and felt rather interested in others.

    The text “Is Google Making Us Stupid” is about the negative aspects of having a search engine. One of the effects is not being able to focus on long readings anymore. In the text, it refers to Bruce Friedman in who said “I now have almost lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print” this shows the effect of a google search engine. With having information at our fingertips we lose the ability to focus and have also the potential to make people lazy as everything is more convenient with the internet

    I believe this text is written in the genre of informational and with the tone of formal
    .
    I believe the intended audience is for those who put all their trust into google’s short and fast searches sand to notice that sometimes you need to go out of your way in order to get better educated

    The purpose for writing this piece is to tell the users that using google can lead to poor reading skills and greater difficulty while focusing when reading a piece which could cause individuals to not be able to get their tasks done

    Carr thinks Google is making us “stupid” in how the media and technology have abolished the function of having to read a full article and its intentions are to narrow it down to a short informational paragraph. It describes the online search habits of scholars at the University College London ” They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would bounce out to another site”. This shows students are having difficulty with focusing on their work

    I agree with the author’s claim on is google making us stupid because of his strong evidence on how it is. Google takes out the effort and I believe it makes us less passionate about what we may have needed to do with the leading effect of laziness. Technology makes tasks easier for all with several after-effects.

  6. Jamal Antar

    This text was not an easy read for me as i thought it was really boring and ironically i guess that sought of proves the author point our readers losing focus more often than before cause of the internet. the text “is google making us dumb” is mainly about how the internet overall has halted our reading capabilities. He talks about how compared to the early days of reading we have regressed cause we take the easy way out and basically scan through readings quickly to get the information we need and quickly getting bored with long readings very quickly and becoming uninterested. the genre of this passage is informative since its educating others on what happen on our regression of reading. the tone of the text is frustration and disappoint from Nic Carr and other writers came out and said that their reading capacity has decreased cause of the internet and how its going to affect almost every reader in the future. i think the intended audience is the readers during the internet era cause they are the ones that have more and more internet access every day which will mean they will lose focus while reading and not be able to reach their full reading potential. this is why i think he wrote it to warn that the internet is having a negative impact on our reading.
    since i grew up having internet basically all the time i think my answer to this is that there is no wrong answer. i think its beneficial that the internet gives us quick access and answers but at the same time it makes me very impatient to finish that may take a while.

  7. Christian Luna

    1) What I thought about this text is that it was very interesting and intriguing at some points but then it got boring in some parts, such as when he talks about how we see our brains as operating systems. “Today, in the age of software, we have come to think of them as operating “like computers.””(Page 431). When Carr compares the past to the present, in the manner that he does this is what I find boring and when I was reading the text, I got distracted in these parts.
    2) The text is mostly about how since humans started using computers and search engines such as Google, their minds have changed into a manner that doesn’t allow them to concentrate on long passages for a long time. “The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing.”(Page 426). Carr then gives an example about someone who has gone through this, he then quotes what Scott Karp has said about how even though he was a lit major in college, he struggles to concentrate on long readings.
    3) The genre of the text is informative because Carr informs the reader of what is happening to people who use Google often and is also talking about how soon it will affect humanity forever, Carr also gives examples of how this has happened in the past before. “He feared that, as people came to rely on the written word as a substitute for the knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would, in the words of one of the dialogue’s characters, “cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.”(Page 437). What Carr is talking about is that he is comparing what has happened in the past to what is happening now, he is trying to show that the same thing will happen; that people will rely on technology for their knowledge instead of their writing because it will become more convenient.
    4) I think that the intended audience of this text is people who are focused more on the internet to get their information than books because he is trying to show what might happen if we all continue to use the internet as our main source of getting information. The group of people that are meant to read this passage are most likely young adults who use the internet and search engines such as Google as their main source of getting information.
    5) I think that the purpose of this text is to inform people of the possible effects that humans might have due to us relying on technology way too much and how we will be unable to remember information for a long time. I believe that the author’s purpose for writing this text is because he wants to spread this information so that everyone can see how much we shouldn’t solely rely on technology.
    6) What Carr believes about Google is that it is making us stupid because we are struggling to read a long passage without getting distracted. We are struggling to focus on a passage that authors have to make the second pages of news into quick summaries of the news for people to quickly read. “When, in March of this year, the New York Times decided to devote the second and third pages of every edition to article abstracts, its design director, Tom Bodkin, explained that the “shortcuts” would give harried readers a quick “taste” of the day’s news…”(Page 432). This is the way that he explains this because he is trying to say that since people can’t focus on passages for long, news articles are now showing a quick summary of stories in short forms so that people can quickly get the news without having to read a long passage.
    7) I agree and disagree with Carr because even though people are relying on the internet more and more and thus causing them to have shorter attention spans, it also helps them because it becomes easier to get information that they were looking for because everything you might need to find is there on the internet. Yes, Google is making us stupid but it is because it is a convenience to have all of the information in one location that is easy to use

  8. Christopher

    I enjoyed the reading because the author provides interesting statistics about how useful Google is. The article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” discusses how our reliance on Google has influenced how we read and write. The text states “Research that used to take days in stacks, periodical rooms, or libraries can now be done in minutes,” implying that we don’t need to read a lot of articles to gain knowledge. We can simply look it up on Google which changes the way we read and write. The genre of the reading is informative with a disturbing tone making the reader think about how the internet may be hurting them. I think the intended audience and who is meant to read this text is people who relies on google daily and may not understand how google may be affecting them. The purpose of the text is to warn readers that technology is disturbing the way we learn and gather information because we rely on the internet. Car thinks Google is making us stupid because he mentions problems that will happen in future generations if we continue to rely on the internet. I agree with Car because Google is used by everyone to gather information and technology has evolved.

  9. Jin teng kam

    I think the reading is interesting because it represent people these day, what i mean by that is we don’t often use our brain to think like what we used to anymore. rather than that we will use internet to think for us for example “will a electric shock kill a electric eel” if the google did not get so strong yet I will think for this question for months but after the internet i will just do a simply search about it and forget after the 30minutes just like what the author says “I’m not thinking the way i used to think” which i truly agree that google is making us stupid. the genre of this reading is informative because it shows how the internet effect our life. i think the intendent audience is for people how reliable a lot into internet because it shows a bad effect of the internet. i think the purpose of this writing is to shows people the true about the internet and i think the author write it because he things many people were living inside the internet. yes Carr think that google is making us stupid because he mention the effect if we keep using internet wisely and how he cant focus like he used to when reading. Yes i truly agree that internet is making us stupid because we dont think like how we used to anymore we will just do simply search for things we want to know and forget about it after 30 minutes

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