ENGL 1301: Exploring Media's Influence on Thought with Carr & Duhigg

This essay examines the influence of media on society's thought processes through a comparative analysis of Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" and Charles Duhigg's "The Power of Habit." Carr argues that the internet diminishes our ability to concentrate and think deeply, while Duhigg explores how media-driven advertising creates habits and cravings. Despite focusing on different aspects of media, both authors express concern about its negative impact on how people process information. The essay highlights how the internet fosters shallow reading habits and how advertising manipulates desires, ultimately arguing that media significantly shapes our thoughts and behaviors. Both authors reveal that the process of thought in the society is gradually changing due to various influences by the media. The internet is changing the pattern of reading, concentration and thinking among individuals. In the same way, the media through advertisements is changing the way society thinks about and perceives about various products. Desklib provides access to similar essays and study resources for students.

Running head: ENGLISH ASSIGNMENT
English assignment
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Michael Cabrera
Engl 1301
4/3/18
The Power of the Media
Over the past few years, there has been an undergoing significant changes in the way
people read and process information. With the passing years the world is heading towards the
creative change. The world is getting faster and it has observed a significant change in the field
of communication. The world has adopted the means of media to head towards the effective
communication and towards making the world a smarter place to live in. The change has been
observed from the old age period to the modern and the post-modern period. The change has also
been witnessed from the primitive to the liberal society. One may even argue that the 21st century
society is drowning in media. Many scholars and authors have expressed their concern in this
regard. Particularly, two authors have raised their concern on the power and effects of media on
how people think. In his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Nicholas Carr shows how the use
of the internet has changed the way we read and process information. On the other hand, Charles
Duhigg, in his article “The Power of Habit” describes how media is used to develop habits and
cravings among the members of society. Although, focusing on different subjects, both authors
possess the same concerns regarding the negative impact that the media has on the way society
thinks and processes information.
Charles Duhigg introduces the concept of habit and its power. He uses the example of
toothpaste and campaign to explain how the human mind develops a craving for a particular
good or service and the craving ends up powering an individual’s habit. In the article, Duhigg

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also demonstrates how people’s thinking can easily be changed by the media using
advertisements which create a craving in their mind and a desire to achieve a particular reward as
promised in the advertisement. Media has the power to attract huge number of people and they
have the power to convey one particular message to a larger number of people. The habit of
people has been taken into account in the particular project. There are many people who does not
follow the habit of using toothpaste properly. In order to improve this the campaign can be
conducted and the campaign can be promoted by the media. Media has the power to convey the
right message to maximum number of people. The campaigns would make the people aware of
the worst consequences of not using toothpaste. This manipulates the consumers. Moreover the
different toothpaste brands are endorsed by different media artist who the consumers look up to.
This is the reason it remained successful. Specifically, the media establishes rewards that may
not necessarily be true, but the society believes in the media and end up developing a habit out of
the product being advertised. The article points out the fact that the media associates various
products with rewards that create cravings among consumers which make the advertised
products desirable in the eyes of the viewer. As a result, it influences the way people think and,
therefore result into habits. The promotion of the campaigns and the necessity of using safe
toothpaste is promoted through different sources of media like, television, hoardings, newspapers
etc. Therefore this can be concluded by saying that media has a huge role in making the people
reconsider their habits.
In his article, Nicholas Carr raises significant concerns on how the internet and
technology as a whole has changed the functioning of the human mind. Precisely, the author
believes that the human mind has been hanging over the past few decades, and is not thinking the
way it used to. In the past, when reading the mind would read longer pieces of work and go

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deeper to seek a better understanding of the information being absorbed. However, nowadays
with the information being found on the internet, the human mind has lost its concentration level
and drifts after two or three pages. What is more, reading which a natural thing was has become
a struggle for many people. The medium has changed the process of thought by chipping away
people’s capacity for concentration and contemplation (Carr). The web has reduced society’s
ability to read and think by creating a habit of shallow reading by organization. These are the
negative impacts that the social media has. Like any other thing the internet too has some good
as well as negative aspects. The negative aspects have been discussed earlier. The web gives the
people the access to the outside world. The individuals are able to get all the information by
sitting in their own house. The web serves the individual with certain information that is useful
to them. There are certain useful information on the internet that turns out to be useful to the
individuals. This helps many students to seek information which helps them in their studies.
Apart from this the web offers some unknown facts that are helpful. The web offers some
innovative idea that develops the complicated idea.
It is important to note that although the two authors focus on different topics in their
articles, they have the same concerns regarding the influence of media on the way people think.
As such, both authors believe that the media has a significant influence in shaping how people
process information and think. For instance, Carr believes that the internet (specifically Google)
has not only made society lazy but has also grasped a broad influence over people’s thoughts.
Mainly, this is because the easy access to large quantities of information has made people to
cease from exercising their memory and become forgetful, thereby creating a habit of shallow
reading by organization. In the same way, Duhigg demonstrates that the media easily changes the
way people believe and in turn create unbreakable habits. He argues that the media has made

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people to believe whatever is advertised by projecting some facts while creating the idea of
rewards. As a result, people tend to work towards getting the reward as there mode of thinking
has shifted to crave the benefits of the reward.
All in all, all factors taken into consideration, the two authors utilize their articles to
demonstrate the effects of the media on the way people and the society in general thinks. While
Carr uses the example of the internet and Google to explain this concept, Duhigg utilizes the
example of a toothpaste advertisement. Despite the two different examples, both authors reveal
that the process of thought in the society is gradually changing due to various influences by the
media. The internet is changing the pattern of reading, concentration and thinking among
individuals. In the same way, the media through advertisements is changing the way society
thinks about and perceives about various products.
Duhigg, Charles. "The Power of Habit". Slate, 2012, http://www.slate.com/news-and-
politics/2018/04/everyone-in-the-trump-administration-thinks-u-s-troops-are-
staying-in-syria-except-the-president.html
The article consists the need of a useful habit of every individual. The author mentioned
about Claude C. Hopkins who was once approached by his friend with an amazing new creation
that was a minty toothpaste named Pepsodent. He was a man who was famous in the world of
advertisement and he was one of the leading advertising executive. He had a good convincing
power. His greatest contribution was convincing the people to practice the habit of suing
toothpaste. According to the author his named should always be recalled and as no one
remembers him now, this should not happen. Hopkins was his inspiration in completing the
research on scientific habit. Like Hopkins he decided to decided to follow two basic rules while

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making a campaign, firstly, to find a simple cue and secondly to clearly define rewards. He
finally explored that the consumers required some amount of signal that the product was
working. The people must be convinced at any cost.
Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The Atlantic, 2008,
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-
stupid/306868/. Accessed 3 Apr 2018.
This author had this notion that the internet made our thought process slow and it has put
a limitation to our thought processes. Our thoughts are restricted because of the information that
are available on the internet. The author is having the feeling that something or someone is
tinkering on his brain. He feels that the web was making him a fool. Though he said that the
internet made his work easier and he like others is now completely dependent on the internet. He
finds that the net has destroyed his concentration process and therefore he was not in favor of it.

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References
Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The Atlantic, 2008,
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/.
Accessed 3 Apr 2018.
Duhigg, Charles. "The Power of Habit". Slate, 2012,
http://www.slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/everyone-in-the-trump-administration-
thinks-u-s-troops-are-staying-in-syria-except-the-president.html