Author: R. Dragan

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 ENG 101 -- Notes  
Session 19  
Tue. 11/22  
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TODOs  
  
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*Instructor Demo of Doing the Research for Essay #3 Milestone #1 – 15 min. – Build a Works Cited Page (15 min.)

*Checklist for Your Milestone #1 (10 min.)

**Sample Essay #3 – Milestone #1 – Example #2 (35 min.)

Online questions (short than last time)
  
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**Start Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" -  
  
(For Essay #4 – Final Exam)  
  
(20 min. reading / skimming – 25 min. for 3 questions – including doing some light Internet research on one name / writer he discusses in his essay) 
 
Discussion 

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Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid? (pp. 187+ in the Course Pack)  
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1) Choose a sentence that could be Carr's thesis statement?  
**Answers

 
*He writes, “Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory” (Carr 187). In this quote, the author means that using the Internet has affected the way his mind works negatively.  
  
He writes, “They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought” (Carr 188). In this passage, the author points out that the way information is presented affects how we think.  
  
He states, “My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski” (Carr 188). In this quote, he hints at the impact of the Internet on reducing his attention span and interfering with his ability to read long books.  
  
 The author says, “Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory” (Carr 187). In this quote, we see the author’s main idea, that the Internet has influenced the way he thinks and remembers.  
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE --   
  
He writes, “And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation” (Carr 188).  
  
The author writes that he suspects Google and other Internet sites are damaging the way he thinks, reads and remembers (Carr 188).  
  
He writes, "The Internet is chipping away my facility for concentration" (Carr 188).  
  
ATTENTION SPAN  
  
MEMORY  
  
READING HABITS  
  
**The author says, "As we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence" (Carr 189).  
  
**The author talks how the medium is the message (Carr 173).  
  
The Internet is hurting his concentration and reading habits.  
  
He writes, "The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle" (Carr 188).  
  
Carr is a critic of the negatives effects on attention and reading habits influenced by the Internet.   
  
2) What kinds of evidence does Carr use to back up his idea that Google might be changing the way he (and other people) read and think?  2 Examples that are effective.  
**Answers

*PERSONAL EXPERIENCE --   
The robot vs. human struggle in a scene from 2001 Stanley  
Kubrick   
  
FRIENDS -- medical blogger  
  
Maryanne Wolf (professor)-- research psychologist who studies effects of the Internet on reading habits  
  
**Carr gives us a medical researcher named Bruce Friedman for evidence, then he turns to a published study on concentration and the Internet.  
  
Like our personal essays for this course, Carr begins with PERSONAL EXPERIENCE for an insight or idea, then he turns to other sources to reinforce and expand the idea.  He actually writes an essay that USES SOURCES (more than we might be able to understand easily), but he starts with PERSONAL EXPERIENCE to get this essay started.  

3) Choose one example of a quote from another writer that seems challenging (or even hard to understand / confusing / incomprehensible).  
Use of sources -- literary name dropping?  
The author alludes to other writers.  
  
**Answers

Friedrich Nietzsche -- typewriter --   
The way you write -- technology -- affects what / how you write.  
  
aphorism -- catchy proverb -- paradox  
  
Alan Turing -- work on computers suggested that computers could do anything....  
  
Daniel Bell -- sociologist  
  
Gutenberg -- printing press  
  
Edward Taylor -- Inventor of Taylorism (turning human factory workers into machines) -- Usually not favored by historians  
  
Clay Shirky -- A strong proponent for the benefits of the Internet -- and the sharing economy (all music, books, writing, video should be free)  
  
Richard Foreman -- carrying books and culture and important stuff in his head (playwright who has written plays on Nietzsche)   

4)	Based on your viewing of the clip from 2001 (a sci-fi movie), is Carr's use of this film positive or negative about new technology like Google?  
**Answers

**Pessimistic -- humans are behaving more like robots  
  
ROBOT more human than the humans  
  
Google is reducing our thinking to become an automated process (like a robot).  

5)	Challenge Question:  Is Carr...  *A 'technology optimist,'  
*A technology pessimist, or a Luddite?  
*Are arguments or advertisements more or less convincing when they come from extreme tech optimists (like Steve Jobs) or Luddites or people who weigh both the pros and cons of technology (like Carr)?   
**Answers

**Between optimism and pessimism -- Carr uses the Internet all the time.  
Carr is NOT a Luddite.  
We can trust him more because he knows technology.  
  
**Carr is a realist about the both the advantages and disadvantages of the Internet.  
  
*He does point out that he has been affected negatively by spending time on the Internet.  
  
*He questions the effects of Google and other Internet companies on our minds (and even happiness and wellbeing). In 2022, we are thinking more critically about social media (esp. Facebook).  

 

 

 

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  NEXT TIME -- TUE. 11/29*  
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HAPPY THANKSGIVING! 
(NO CLASSES AT LAGUARDIA ON THU. 11/24)  

1) ESSAY #3, MILESTONE #1 IS DUE IN 1 WEEK ON TUE. 11/29 (11:59 pm)

Please upload your paper to:

       submit101.lagcconline.com

PICK A TOPIC SOON (1 out of 3) 
 
DO THE RESEARCH JUST LIKE YOU SAW IN CLASS TODAY. BUILD A WORKS CITED PAGE. 
 
You can write Page One this week following the guidelines for the Introduction: Introduce your topic, 
main text (Gelernter’s book, author + title), use a FRAMING QUOTE and end with the EXACT thesis statement for your selected prompt. 

2) There is another 'challenging' reading for Week 11 -- short essays on the effects of the Internet on our thinking. It's posted on our materials for Session 19. But we will read it together in class on Tue. 
 
Concentrate on your Essay #3, Milestone #1! 

We’ll finish the Carr essay and start the 2^nd ‘paired’ reading.