As I read this article my freshman summer, I had an open mind and believed every word that Carr wrote. Instead of looking for the faults in the article, I forced myself to believe every single one of Carr's points, like a regular freshman would. I could even say that this article helped "condition" me to believe that google is evil. When I read this article for the second time recently, I totally changed my outlook on the story. Instead of believing every word Carr wrote in his arguement, I attempted to decondition myself and go against Carr. I ended up successful in proving to myself that the arguements about google and the internet making us stupid are false.


Carr attempts to prove that because of the internet, people only skim through articles instead of reading the whole thing because the internet has hurt our attention spans. This is absolutely false. As belhambone states on his comment on the article, "I feel that (the internet) is not making us stupid but making us more demanding. Before the internet and television, we were given a limited amount of topics that we could review from. . . However now that we can dwelve a wider range of topics there is no need for such depth." Belhambone is spot on with his arguement. Google is not shortening our attention spans, but is highering our standards on searching for information. It is making us more demanding to find the perfect article. Why would we continue reading an article if we already know that it can't help us? This increases our efficiency immensely, and I don't know how that can be looked on in a negative sense. I also have never had trouble concentrating while reading a long book or a dense article. For Carr to blame his concentration problems on the internet is very unfair. There is no proof at all that Carr's reading troubles are related to the internet, he is just looking for a scapegoat to blame.

If anything, google makes us smarter. It gives us a wider range of information to search through. With google, instead of searching for the "perfect quote" for hours through books and encyclopedias, you can find it in minutes. Huxley and Carr share similar views on human cognition. Carr argues that humans make their decisions by the first thing they read. For example, if the title of an article is interesting then most people will read on. Huxley believes that humans thoughts and decision making are created by being conditioned at a young age. I agree with most of Carr's points, but instead of looking at them negatively, I see them positively. Google makes us more effecient and helps us gain more information.