Topic_Week Five Discussion A

10/27/21, 9:13 PM Topic: Week Five Discussion A

https://online.valenciacollege.edu/courses/123618/discussion_topics/1574342 1/2

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Summer Cooper Monday

According to Carr, the internet is making our minds less cognitive than it would be when just reading a book or paper article.

Although, the internet is more efficient when it comes to research and other things compared to books and writing, there are still drawbacks. For example, Bruce Freidman a pathologist from the University of Michigan Medical School states “I can’t read War and Peace anymore,” and “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.” Even though there is no exact medical research to back his words he does mention the University College London has done a recent study of online research habits. That suggests that we are “in the midst of a sea change in the way we read and think.” Some technologies and inventions that Carr mentions to describe how the internet has revolutionized our lives is google’s search engine. He states how information is a commodity and the faster you can get this information the more productive we are. He also brings up the use of the typewriter and the origin of writing itself and how our minds are similar to plastic in malleability. He references how our minds will change over time as new technology is introduced. Carr’s thesis statement isn’t too clear and obvious as what you would expect in the typical format and formula for a thesis statement, so that’s why I think it’s an implicit thesis. But, this doesn’t mean that there is no thesis statement whatsoever. Throughout, the article Carr makes his thesis statement clear near the beginning and again at the end. Carr combines personal experiences and scholarly sources to support his claim to show his anecdotal emotions and thoughts aren’t just blindly emotional with nothing factual to back it up.

Lureen Flores 9:02pm

Hi Summer,

I do agree the internet has quite an effect on our cognitive functions. Everyday simple reading has become less and less. Articles online have advertisements in between the paragraphs which do not help us focus on the article itself but distract and interrupt us from what we are originally reading. Ordinary newspapers or books do not contain advertisements which historically we were able to focus and complete reading without interruption. The internet has a different setup and with all the distractions no wonder our minds are reprogrammed to lack focus and want to do something while trying to read. Our brain is taught to crave motion or animation. Simple words cannot compete with that.

Yariela Mendoza Yesterday

Carr believes that Internet use affects cognition. Carr explains how by sharing some of the research that was conducted by

scholars from University College London. They go on to say that there are new forms of reading, emerging, calling it “power browsing”. This being to skim or scan through “titles, contents pages, and abstracts”. Implying that people are just trying to get information as quickly as possible without having to read as much and using the internet almost to “avoid

10/27/21, 9:13 PM Topic: Week Five Discussion A

https://online.valenciacollege.edu/courses/123618/discussion_topics/1574342 2/2

reading in the traditional sense”. The most obvious technology Carr used to describe how the internet has revolutionized our lives, lies in the title. This being google. He believed that “What Taylor (the creator of the algorithm that revolutionized all acts of manual labor) did for the work of the hand, Google is doing for the work of the mind”. While reading Carr’s article, I was able to identify that he was using an implicit thesis statement. I made the connection through the fact that instead of using actual proof, he used evidence based upon other studies and personal experiences that didn’t necessarily provide facts for his thesis statement. I believe that he used an implicit thesis statement because he wasn’t able to come across hard-hitting facts to back up his thesis. Carr combining personal experiences and research from scholarly sources as evidence to support his claims was his attempt to make the connections between his thesis and the personal opinions of those scholars in particular. He did so because he felt it would support his thesis.