Blog Post #3 - Is Google Making Us Stupid?

1. What's the author's intent? - To help us see that in an effort to become smarter by using virtual intelligence, we are actually causing harm to ourselves. These electronic 'helpers' are really hurting us.
What is the author trying to persuade the audience to think/do/feel? - To feel just how machine-like and autonomous we become as we use and depend more and more on technology.

2. What are the specific rhetorical tools the author is using?
-Personification = ""Dave, my mind is going," HAL says, forlornly. "I can feel it. I can feel it.""
-Imagery = "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski."
-Metaphor = "we risk turning into "'pancake people' - spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.""
-Pathos = "I'm haunted by that scene in 2001...its childlike pleading with the astronaut - "I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm afraid" - and its final reversion to what can only be called a state of innocence. HAL's outpouring of feeling contrasts with the emotionlessness that characterizes the human figures in the film, who go about their business with an almost robotic efficiency. Their thoughts and actions feel scripted, as if they're following the steps of an algorithm. In the world of 2001, people have become so machinelike that the most human character turns out to be a machine. That's the essence of Kubrick's dark prophecy: as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence."

3. What is the audience reaction? - Wow! This is true! The more I use electronic 'helpers,' the more impeded I become. The more dependent we become on technology, the less human we remain.
Does the reaction correlate with the author's intent? - Absolutely!
Was the article effective of ineffective? - Very effective

4. Bonus

Nicholas Carr writes about technology, culture, and economics.

Nick has been a columnist for The Guardian in London and has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, The Times of London, The New Republic, The Financial Times, Die Zeit and other periodicals.

Nick is a member of the Encyclopedia Britannica's editorial board of advisors, is on the steering board of the World Economic Forum's cloud computing project, and writes the popular blog Rough Type. He has been a writer-in-residence at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a sought-after speaker for academic and corporate events. Earlier in his career, he was executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.A., in English and American Literature and Language, from Harvard University.
- http://www.nicholasgcarr.com/info.shtml
The article was published in The Atlantic Monthly 302.1, July/August 2008