Is Nicholas Carr Making Us Stupid

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The Real Question: Is Carr Making Us Stupid? Have you ever curled up on the couch with your loved one, a bowl of popcorn in hand, to watch the film you picked out at the movie store? Excited about the new release you press play and sit through two hours of nonsence? "Great. I will never get those two hours back, and I actually feel dumber for sitting through that whole thing." you say to yourself. Well, Nicholas Carr's essay, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" is the printed version of that exact film. In his soap box style essay, Carr attempts to antagonize the reader with the negative effects that result from internet use,” [The] detrimental effects on cognition that diminish the capacity for concentration and contemplation. (Wikipedia, Web) When in fact, all he manages to do is uncover a potential underlying personal medical condition, and supply relevant support for the opposing argument. From Carr's opening paragraph you can get a rough understanding on his skewed view, comparing "HAL" (the super-computer from Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey) to his own personal emotion of becoming mentally disconnected. The computer in the film is having its memory chips removed one at a time, and unable to stop Dave (the astronaut dismantling HAL), retorts with 'Dave my mind is going,' ... 'I can feel it. I can feel it.' Carr then goes on to the second paragraph, following this analogy with: “I can feel it too. Over the past few years I've had an {BLOCK PHRASE} uncomfortable sense that someone, or something has been tinkering with my brain,....I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading." [Carr then goes on to inform the reader of how immersed he would get in the text of books and articles.] "That's rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get
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