Like some of the previous authors we have looked at this semester (specifically Birkerts), Carr holds onto the sentiment that the internet, while promoting a great deal of things in the world of information, comes “with a price”. However from this point on, Carr strays completely from what we have heard so far.
First off, Carr strays from the others in terms of his reasoning behind that “price”… Carr brings forth a concern that the internet, in its vast, changing-at-the-touch-of-a-button nature, is beginning to whittle away our attention spans, and in doing so cuts away time that would normally be spent processing and contemplating whatever we are reading.
Carr, with a degree humility completely absent in the texts of Baron and Berry and Birkerts, introduces ethos/credibility into his argument by, instead of condescending or pointing fingers, saying that this ‘dumbing-down’ is happening to HIM. This further separates him from the other authors of the unit, who instead packaged the whole issue as a “younger generation problem”, which they of course were far too good to fall victim of. This small bit of humility and credibility goes a long way, for it puts me as a reader in a position to relate to him, instead of immediately putting me on the defensive. It also in a way establishes a form of evidence that what he is discussing really is happening, and is not just an elaborate theory.
Carr next strengthens his argument for the issue by introducing his ‘friends’ and associates, who he claims to be suffering “similar experiences”. He casually includes some names and establishes their credibility: “Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine”, and “Scott Karp”, who “was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader”. He even links to their respective websites. This, to me, as a child of the electronic generation, is flat-out more meaningful to me in an argument then the ISBN number of a referenced 30 year old book that I have never and will never read.
What makes Carr and his argument the most different from the previous authors is probably the fact that I find myself agreeing with them. This made me think for a while, because when simplified quite a bit, Carr’s and Birkert’s points (as i pointed out initially), are pretty similar to each other. Why, then, do I find myself liking and agreeing with Carr while at the same time refuting and scorning Birkerts? I suppose it it because they both write like the age the belong to. Carr is easier to agree with because I can relate to him… we are both members of and perhaps victims of the age of technology.
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