From The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains By Nicholas Carr

Over the years, technology has developed into something that we cannot live without. Society is constantly being dictated and reshaped by the newest technology. In Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, he expounded on the uncomfortable sense that someone, or something was tinkering with his brain. He realized that he’s not thinking the way he used to. Additionally, he explains how our brains aren’t familiar with critical thinking anymore. He also introduces the idea that the Internet is doing more harm to us than good. I believe Carr’s ideas on the negative effects of the Internet are well founded. The validity surrounds us daily.

Jeffrey Hill, a sociologist at Brigham Young University. “It enables just that kind of compulsive behavior.”There's now a serious debate going on within therapeutic circles about whether people can become addicted to the Internet in the way that they might become addicted to chemical substances. And there's a broader debate taking place about whether the Internet is changing the way people think.Much of that debate has been triggered by journalist Nicholas Carr, author of the controversial 2008 Atlantic article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” He has since expanded his ideas into a book called The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.Carr says the Internet is an unmatched tool for communications and information but argues that it can have bad effects on our brains. The Internet, he says, speaks to the parts of our brain that are attracted to movement, visual imagery and novelty — primitive parts of the brain that do not lend themselves to deep thought and contemplation.“There's a whole realm of thought that I think is very important to the richness of our personal intellectual lives, and also very important to the building of culture, that requires an attentive mind,” Carr said. “We don't want to sit alone in a dark room thinking about one thing all day long, but neither do we want to be processing a constant influx of texts and

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr is a compilation of critiques on current societal trends and observations of brain studies intermittently mixed with his reminiscing about how the world was before the mainstream adoption of the internet. Throughout the book, Carr expresses concerns that if humanity does not stop or change the way we interact with the internet, attention spans will plummet and deep thinking as we know it may cease to exist. I enjoyed this novel as an avid technologist for the fact that it provided well structured versions of the arguments technophobes have been using for years. Being able to switch my perspective through this book gives me new insights on why people are afraid of technological advancements and aids me in calming

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.

The Internet is the culmination of technological development. Thankful to it, humans have become multilaterally developed, the time has become a measure that has truly gained value, and science is more practical and accessible around the world. In his work:” The Shallows-What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains”, the publisher and author Nicolas Carr explains on his experience how the Internet besides its benefits has an enormous defect-distraction, lack of concentration on the meaning of things, or an event. In his speech, he mentions a habit that we practice daily and we do not realize his negative impact, namely the lack of concentration caused by “over welling urge to get up and check email, start clicking on links, do some googling” even

The general argument made by Nicholas Carr is that the internet is destroying people all around the world. From not really focusing in school to just all kinds of different stuff in the world like crazy stuff. For example in par. 2, Nicholas Carr quotes that over the years it's been uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry reprogramming the memory. Saying the minds of the others aren't going as far and thinking on their own. Nicholas Carr wants others to know what the internet is doing to people around the world so they can maybe change what they do in their lives to make themselves look better. In conclusion Carr wishes the

Nicholas Carr believes that using the internet over a long period of time, has changed his way of thinking, as if “someone or something is reprogramming his brain”. (Nicholas 314). He struggles more than ever to read large or long books or emerging himself in to the text that he is reading. Concentration at some point along the way has diminished for Nicholas. After reading two or three pages, he tends to lose focus and starts doing something else. Nicholas feels that over the time that he has used the internet as a writer, it has given him the option to look up anything that he asked and it is right there at a moment’s notice. Researching through books, searching through libraries for facts is all a thing of the past. Using the internet never made anything more easier. In actuality it is a good and a bad thing. Getting information all

Can a material such as the internet really go deep into the mind and rewire it? Nicholas Carr’s opinion is that the internet makes us shallow, hence the title of the novel “The Shallows, What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains.” I agree with Nicholas Carr’s claim since it not only makes us shallow, but also disconnects us from our heart, souls, and loved ones. The reason his claim is so riveting, is the result of our heavy use. Many of us spend hours on the internet and don’t even recognize it.

Nicholas Carr set out to examine the effect the internet had on the way individuals process information and concluded that everyone is essentially affected by technology in some way or another. With this hypothesis came his self-examination as well as input from Carr’s colleagues along with experiments providing proof of the “change” in a person’s mindset. Carr initially begins the article using an example of himself. Since using the internet so often for immediate access to information he finds his “mind isn’t going but it’s changing”. He explains that the web was welcomed by him as a writer, as it cut down on research time, but it quickly escalated into being used even when not working through “reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines

As Carr continues, he speaks of his extended use of the internet over the last decade, explaining that all information that he once painstakingly searched for is done in minutes with the use of search engines. In doing this, Carr places blame on the internet for breaking his ability to concentrate. Carr presents his arguments in a way that his readers could easily agree. He gradually works up to the idea that the internet has weakened his ability to focus, and as he does this he makes several general statements about the internet’s nature. These points on the net’s nature are so basic that any reader of his article would be inclined to agree with them, and this lends itself to help readers believe the argument Carr wishes to propose. Because it would be hard to provide factual evidence to support his claims, Carr effectively uses logical reasoning to convince the reader.

When most people think of the Internet, they think of all the benefits of using it: countless websites filled with seemingly unlimited information, numerous ways to communicate with friends and colleagues, and games and interactive activities. What does not come immediately to mind, however, are all the downfalls of the online world. In chapter seven of his book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr addresses this fallacies by presenting the facts through studies and research. He begins with the dwindling ability to communicate well with others.

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.

In the book The Shallows by Nicholas Carr focuses on the issue of the Internet becoming our second nature to us humans and replacing everything we know now with technology in a passage that appears in a chapter called, “Hal and Me.” Nicholas Carr opens the passage by writing, “The net has become my all-purpose medium…” (Carr 6). Next, he indicates that having access to so much material in a matter of seconds that he has all this time on his hands to spend like a kid in a candy shop. Following that, Carr points out how other people, such as Bruce Friedman, a blogger who talks about the internet changing his mental state, have “almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print” (Carr 7). Finally, Carr closes the passage by stating reading books in the modern times is obsolete or even weird to see someone reading rather than using the internet. Some might be troubled by what Carr says. They would argue that using the internet lets you absorb information faster and more efficient than pushing through chapters of a book is a better way to think about the issue. On the other hand, Carr’s position on this issue is good one for several reasons. One is that people are losing interest completely with reading books or anything that involves having long, intensive focus because of the internet. We can see why this idea makes sense if we consider the following

In our modern age, people live a fast-paced life. Almost everything, it seems, is done by way of the Internet. Many wonder what the effects this kind of lifestyle has on society. There is a debate whether the internet has alienated us from families, society, and reality. Supporters of this debate suggest that those ‘addicted’ to the internet use it in place of reading, face-to-face conversations, socializing, and in place of deeper thinking and brain analyzation processes. The other group suggests that the information obtained on the internet gives on the ability to process more information at a more rapid pace than book research. It can be argued that the internet is overriding our ability to socialize with others, to read a good book to recognize tone, and our ability to be captivated by the words and feel the emotions those words offer, but the internet, used properly, has its place in our daily lives.

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.