Toulmin Model For: "Is Google Making Us Stupid" by Nicholas Carr

Claim: The Internet is ruining our ability to concentrate

Statement of Claim: “What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.”

Subclaims:
1. “The writing equipment we use takes part in forming our thoughts”
2. “The human brain is almost infinitely malleable”
3. We glorify new technology
4. Traditional media must become more like new media to keep in business.
5. While the internet has advantages, it also has disadvantages.

Support:
1. “The writing equipment we use takes part in forming our thoughts”

• Nietzsche Example (with the typewriter changing his style of writing)

2. “The human brain is almost infinitely malleable”

• uses words of James Olds (prominent authority in the neuroscience field): “the brain has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions.

3. We glorify new technology

• the clock example ( people started to live by the clock instead of listening to what their bodies had to say.)

4. Traditional media must become more like new media to keep in business.

• “…magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy to browse info-snippets.”

5. While the internet has advantages, it also has disadvantages.

• Socrates example
• Socrates was afraid that the invention of writing would cause people to become less intelligent when really, it spread information. The Internet could have unforeseen benefits.

Warrant: Carr assumes that he is speaking to people who use Google and the Internet frequently.