Is Google Making Us Stupid? Nicholas Carr

This activity is focused on understanding how Carr makes an argument that browsing the internet is changing the way we think, and how he uses a number of different examples to help prove his point. For this task, I'd like to focus on how the examples he gives help to build his argument. Your task for this activity consists of several parts, so please read carefully.

We can divide this article up into a number of sections. There are 33 paragraphs (I have not counted block quotations as separate paragraphs) in the article, and I've come up with six distinct sections (where the focus shifts, or where a new argument is introduced--you could likely make an argument for different sections from these, but this gives us a starting point). I've ordered them below with the paragraph numbers that go in each section.

Section 1 (introduction) (1-4)

Section 2 (5-10) starts with "anecdotes alone"

Section 3 (11-17) starts with "as we use what the sociologist"

Section 4 (18-22) starts with "about the same time"

Section 5 (23-27) starts with "where does it end?"

Section 6 (28-29) starts with "maybe I'm just a worrywart"

Section 7 (conclusion) (30-33) starts with "so, yes,"

For this exercise you are to pick one section. These are first come, first served, so if someone has, for example, picked section 2, you should choose a different section. I realize that there are only seven sections here and many students in the class, so there will likely be some duplication, but I would like people to try to choose one that either no one has picked, or has fewer people already working on it. To claim the section simply make a post saying you've claimed it.

To complete the activity you will need to:

1. Find the main topic or subject of the section (i.e. what is Carr discussing and what does he want us to take away from his discussion? For the most part he will be explaining his theory and giving examples to support it, but how does he do this? What kinds of evidence is he providing?
2. Find evidence that supports your above assertion. To do this you will need to find a direct quotation from the article that supports what you've said. You'll also need to put this in APA format.
3. Look up and define anything that is "unknown" (by this I mean any unfamiliar words that Carr uses, any historical or any scientific or jargon-heavy references he's making, etc.) Again, you will need to properly reference what you have looked up. Note as well that this is not an optional task. You can't say that there's nothing unknown.
4. Explain the contribution of this section to Carr's overall argument. We will be discussing what his overall argument might be in the chat, but you're free to bring your own interpretation. This will be different from part 1 above because in this one you are talking about the overall article and in the first part you are only talking about the section you're working on.