Carr vs. Cascio

Neil Sharma

Cheryl Clark

Persuasive Writing

27 July 2011

Carr vs. Cascio

In recent discussion of the internet, a controversial issue has been whether the internet makes people less smart or smarter. On the one hand, some argue that the internet makes people less intelligent. From this perspective, people such as Nicholas Carr who wrote the article Is Google Making Us Stupid claim that the internet has caused some people such as himself to regress in reading and to lose interest in reading because the internet summarizes information and makes it easily accessible. On the other hand, however, others argue that the internet makes people more intelligent. In the words of Jamais Cascio who wrote the article Get Smarter, and is one of this view’s main proponents claims, “It’s visible in the hive mind of the Internet, in the powerful tools for simulation and visualization that are jump-starting new scientific disciplines, and in the developmental drugs that some people (myself included) have discovered let them study harder, focus better, and stay awake longer with full clarity.” In sum, then, the issue is whether the internet makes people less smart or smarter.

My own view is that the internet is a helpful tool that is beneficial and makes people more capable and intelligent. I’ve always believed that the interest does this by providing information that educates people on all levels. Though I concede that the internet has caused some people to lose interest in reading, I maintain that the benefits of the internet outweigh the detriments. Although some may object that it does not, I would reply that it does because it provides people to access a huge pool of information and gain all the knowledge that they need from it. Common sense seems to dictate that the more information that a person gains the smarter they become. This issue is important because it is pertinent to current events a modern technology which affects many people.