Nicholas Carr 's The Shallows : What The Internet Is Doing

In The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, he asserts that the evolution of information and communication technology (ICTs) is having a detrimental impact on our brains despite the many benefits and advances we have made with it. His main focus is on the internet which he commonly refers to as the “universal medium” (92). Carr presents a very detailed but biased argument in which he views the internet and other technologies as the adversary of critical thinking and progress. To Carr, we are sacrificing our ability to think logically because we are choosing a simpler way to gain knowledge.

The Internet is something that some consider their lifesavers, while others believe that it takes their life away. The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr is a novel that explores the different areas of how new technologies affect humans in different ways, regarding multi-tasking and distractions, to how new technologies make us lose a little part of ourselves. Throughout the book Carr puts forward very strong arguments, but then loses creditability with his use of fallacies in argument.

Nicholas Carr’s Is Google Making Us Stupid? explains the impact the Internet is having on his (and others) patience with in depth reading habits, and possibly the way their brain is processing information. The old days of having to spend hours researching a subject are long gone because of the Internet. Having such a powerful tool available at any time can be a good and bad thing wrapped up in the same package. Over the last couple decades, home computer and smartphone ownership has been on a steady rise with most homes now having multiple devices. Therefore, having unlimited information available at all times has become a reality.

Nicholas Carr covers an unprecedented amount of material in his novel, “The Shallows.” He delves into subjects ranging from the history of the book to the business of Google to the psychological concept of neuroplasticity. All of these topics support his main argument: the idea that the internet is destroying our brains. He takes the deterministic approach that we are the tools we use, meaning they shape our brains. According to Carr, the internet negates our memories, deems print books useless, and distracts us from reality. His counterargument comes from the instrumentalist approach; this viewpoint maintains that people stay the same no matter the tools they use. His arguments are both sound and flimsy, current and outdated, and he rants

The internet is an excellent place to explore our mind and put our thoughts together; however, it also has a negative effect to our brains, and the more we use it the more it decrease our intelligence. In this essay “Does the Internet Make You Smarter or Dumber?” by Nicholas Carr, he argues about the immoral side of the internet. According to Carr, “When we’re constantly distracted and interrupted, as we tend to be online, our brains are unable to forge the strong and expansive neural connections that give depth and distinctiveness to our thinking” (22). Carr’s pint of view about the internet is that it does not make us smarter in any way; if anything it make us dense and slow. Scientific study have shown that most people who stayed on the internet quit a lot are more likely to damage their brains mentally. According to Carr, the internet is also a place to waste our time. Carr backed up his arguments with studies from scientists, researches and even books. In these essay, Carr’s appeals to logic and understanding is the strongest; whereas his appeals to ethos and his appeals to pathos are finite.

“We are gradually changing from a nation of calloused hands to a nation of agile brains.” – Marcel Just. (Begley 92) This quote really speaks to me. I find it to be very true as we are focusing more on developing new technology to do the work we might be doing with our hands. It is similar to the common expression “Work Smarter not Harder”. I think that this is what the internet is letting us do. However many authors and writers do not think this is the case. They believe that the internet is making us less intelligent as it is rewiring our brain to think in order of internet articles rather than books. I on the contrary believe the internet is giving us an easy opportunity to learn which is therefore making us more intelligent.

In the Shallows Nicholas Carr shown his side of the argument that technology is overpowering our minds. How he proves this fact is that whenever we learn something new on the computer it takes less than 2 days for the brain to reshape itself to adapt to the new learning environment. The brian has a plasticity to being able to mold itself into a new challenge to adapt to a new circumstance. We become dependent of the internet addicted to see what is new with our friends. Finally it shows that we can’t be offline for a certain time period or we will get withdraws like a drug. This shows how the internet and technology has affected us in a terrible manner.

It is true that people are becoming more and more reliant on the internet to do everyday tasks. I feel that Carr addresses the issue perfectly in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid”. If we continue to use technology for everything, we will eventually lose all ability to deep read and make those critical connections that are necessary for true comprehension and application. He indicates that “the more [he] uses the web, the more he has to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing” (736). Knowing how difficult it was to read and analyze Carr’s article myself, I fully agree with his claims. Having grown up in a world that has always had technology, I must be hyper-cognizant of the task at hand when it comes to something such as reading, particularly if it is something that I deem less than interesting. When I was finally able to get through the entire essay, I started to think about how much I use the internet. I must admit that

In the book, The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr, they talk about ways the internet has changed the way we think and how we take in information. The internet is the space where everyone can be connected in one way or another. It has many positive effects but like anything with positive effects, it has some negative effects. The internet can be a great source of news, information, entertainment, and much more. But the way it is presented sometimes can have some negative effects on our brain. I do agree with the statement that the internet is affecting how we think and how we perceive things, but it isn’t always in the most negative way. In the book, The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr, he talks about how the brain functions and how the internet affecting us in a negative way. But later on, he goes on to state that it has in some ways made people smarter than they were before. I’d have to say that I do agree with everything that Nicholas Carr has to say about

Since the rise of technology and smart devices, the public has seen controversy over the benefits and drawbacks of internet usage. Nicholas Carr shared his opinions in the article “From The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.” In the text, he claims that it seems to be “chipping away” his “capacity for concentration and contemplation” (Carr 5). In addition to that, he does not hesitate to state how “some worry they’re becoming chronic scatterbrains” from using the web (Carr 6). His views are painted purple in this piece of writing, as any reader could infer that Carr possesses a slightly bitter tone when it comes to the interwebs. He displays his dislike for the way it is reshaping our brains and mental function, even going

The internet is our conduit for accessing a wide variety of information. In his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Nicholas Carr discusses how the use of the internet affects our thought process in being unable to focus on books or longer pieces of writing. The author feels that “someone, or something, has been tinkering with [his] brain” over the past few years (Carr 731). While he was easily able to delve into books and longer articles, Carr noticed a change in his research techniques after starting to use the internet. He found that his “concentration often [started] to drift after two or three pages” and it was a struggle to go back to the text (Carr 732). His assertion is that the neural circuits in his brain have changed as a

Nicholas Carr published The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains in 2011 as a result of his own personal experiences and observations of his own behavior. The book was published by W.W. Norton & Company with ISBN 978-0-393-33975-8. Carr began working on the book after he noticed that since the birth of the internet, he did not think in the same ways that he used to think; he was easily distracted and had trouble concentrating on tasks requiring a lot of thought (2011). This effect, he noticed, was not unique to him. Many of his colleagues reported that they too had lost a lot of interest in reading books, had trouble concentrating and were easily distracted (Carr, 2011). What if, Carr wondered, everyone doesn’t just prefer to do their reading on the internet for its inherent convenience and speed but rather, what if the internet was actually changing the way we all think?

Is the internet making us smarter or dumber? People continuously argue whether this rise of electronic use and internet in our lives is a negative or positive aspect. In June 5, 2010 Wall Street Journal article, Nicholas Carr raises and answer the intriguing question,“Does the Internet Make You Dumber?”Nicholas Carr argues that the internet has bad effects on our brain. He says that the internet makes it harder to remember anything, and that is harder to move memories into long term memory. Those who are continually distracted by emails, alerts, and text messages understand less than a person who can concentrate. Nicholas Carr points that the internet can change the way our brain acts. He states that those who use the internet are shallow, and the internet is causing irreversible damage to our thought processes and making us stupid. A week later, Steven Pinker counters Nicholas Carr’s assertions in his own New York Time article,“Mind Over Mass Media.”He argues that electronic technologies are not as horrible as some may make it seem, and he starts his article by addressing how“New forms of media have always caused moral panics”(199). Throughout his article, Pinker explains why critics, who accuse electronic technology as harming to human intelligence, are wrong. He suggests that,“these technologies are the only things that will keep us smart”(200). Through media and social networking, the internet brings people closer together and provides convenience for people’s life.

I think the internet does make you dumber, due to people always wanting to search for answers, instead of thinking things clearly. To me that’s a huge distraction to our brain, because it impacts us on how we think. With the internet easily accessing us information, nobody has time to concentrate. I think that the internet is causing us to actually lose focus from reading books, due to quick thinking skills that the internet allows us.

Further neuroscience research shows that extensive use of the internet may physically be changing our brains. Our minds adapt to new ideas and concept everyday and when introduced to a new task or job, our brains change as “new neural pathways that give instructions to our bodies” (“What…Plasticity?”) open up. Brain plasticity, “the capacity of the brain to change with learning” (Michelon) can occur at any age and is responsible for instructing our brains to perform a task. New neural wires are created when you learn something new, but those same connections can also be destroyed, for instance when you forget a person’s name, signaling the failing of a person’s memory (“What…Plasticity?”). The more time spent on the Internet, the more our brains grow more accustomed to processing simplified snippets of information very quickly, and because Internet articles become easier to read and skim over, it appeals more to the mind than denser and longer printed text.