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Brendan Birney
22 September 2015
English 111
Instructor Wyman
Internet v. PowerPoint

Is the Internet really making it harder for people to focus on

different tasks? Nicolas Carr thinks so in his essay, Is Technology
making us Stupid? He states that the Internet is making him lose his
love for reading books and various news articles. While in Edward
Tuftes, PowerPoint is Evil, he says that teaching students how to use
PowerPoint at an early age is handicapping their learning experience.
Could PowerPoint really be hindering childrens learning? Or could both
of these claims be true?
In Nicolas Carrs, Is Technology making us Stupid? Carr talks
about how he believes that the Internet is making him lose focus when
he reads other works of literature. He states, Immersing myself in a
book or a lengthy article used to be easyNow my concentration often
starts to drift after two or three pages (Carr 371). Carr has a very
good point in saying that he gets off track after a few pages of reading;
personally the same thing happens to me when I try to sit down and
read a piece of literature. Carr goes on to say that he is not alone with
this idea, as he interviewed Bruce Freidman a faculty member at the

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University of Michigans Medical school. Freidman says, I now have
almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the
Web or in print (Carr 371). Carr then goes on to talk about how our
brain needs time to adapt and make new connections with the
Internet, just like how we had to adapt to the concept of time. Carr
says, The process of adapting to new intellectual technologies is
reflecting in the changing metaphors we use to explain ourselves to
ourselves. When the mechanical clock arrived, people began thinking
of their brains as operating like clockwork. Today, in the age of
software, we have come to think of them as operating like computer.
(Carr 373)
In Edwards Tuftes, PowerPoint is Evil, Tufte talks about how he
thinks that PowerPoints are a poor way to teach children how to
present their materials. Tufte says, Rather than learning to write a
report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate
client pitches and infomercials (Tufte 390). Tufte is right about this
point, children need to learn how to write rather then learning how to
formulating a PowerPoint slide. Writing is a very important skill in the
buissness world and in many other industries. There should be classes
that teach you how to make a resume or how to write a business
report. Tufte then goes on to finish his essay with this,
PowerPoint is a competent slide manger and projector. But rather
than supplementing a presentation, it has become a substitute for it.

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Such misuse ignores the most important rule of speaking: Respect your
audience (Tufte 391).
These two essays have some similar points and they have their
differences, the one with the most truth to it is Nicholas Carrs, is
Technology making us Stupid?
In Carrs essay he has some very good points about how he thinks that
the Internet is making the world unfocused. Carr also has many
examples of other friends/colleagues having the same issues as him.
The Tufte essay was very well written but didnt have to many real
world examples on why he thinks PowerPoint is evil. That essay
seemed more like a shot at PowerPoint and Microsoft rather then it
hurting us as a society. In the end I do believe that people should
monitor their Internet time because in the long run it might come back
to hurt us one day.

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Tufte,Edward.PowerPointIsEvil.N.d.Essay.MidMichiganCommunity
College,Mt.Pleasant,MI.
Carr,Nicholas. IsGoogleMakingUsStupid? N.d.Essay.MidMichigan
CommunityCollege,Mt.Pleasant,MI.