Is Google Making Us Stupid? response

               Nicholas Carr shares his fear of something tinkering with his brain to his readers in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid”. Carr establishes the juxtaposition to his fear in the form of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The reason that Carr is paranoid about this change in his mental framework is that his attention span is waning and he can no longer focus for lengths of time that he was once capable of focusing. His transition to the research behind his claims was effective for several reasons. One of the main factors that caught my attention was the amount of personal narrative that he included at the beginning of his argument. This was effective because he appeals to the average reader’s need for a break from facts with a story. In fact, that is the very point of his article. His phrasing is effective in catching the reader’s attention as in a story does and then he eases into a voice that switches towards the research end of his writing. Readers identify with the same opinion as his because he makes them consider the same viewpoints and scenarios in their own lives. The author’s choice to make the title the same as the question he is attempting to answer is a strong foundation for his writing. Starting out with the question makes the readers think from the first sentence that he is out to prove his answer to that question or that he is there to ponder deeper thoughts on the question. A caveat to this is that if the topic does not interest many readers, then he loses audience before he even has a chance to catch interest. His thesis is out in the open before he has any opportunity to hook people into his claims.