The best-selling author of The
Big Switch returns with an explosive look at technology’s
effect on the mind. “Is Google making us stupid?” When
Nicholas Carr posed that question, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly
cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is
changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of
our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our
ability to read and think deeply?
|
Now, Carr expands his argument
into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s
intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. As he describes
how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools
of the mind”—from the alphabet to maps, to the printing
press, the clock, and the computer—Carr interweaves a fascinating
account of recent discoveries in neuroscience by such pioneers as
Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel. |
Our brains, the
historical and scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our
experiences. The technologies we use to find, store, and share
information can literally reroute our neural pathways.
Building on the
insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing
case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic
— a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and
intelligence. He explains how the printed book served to focus our
attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the
Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of
information from many sources. Its ethic is that of the industrialist,
an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and
consumption — and now the Net is remaking us in its own image. We
are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are
losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection.
Part intellectual history, part popular science, and part cultural
criticism, The Shallows sparkles with memorable vignettes —
Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with a typewriter, Sigmund Freud
dissecting the brains of sea creatures, Nathaniel Hawthorne
contemplating the thunderous approach of a steam locomotive —
even as it plumbs profound questions about the state of our modern
psyche. This is a book that will forever alter the way we think about
media and our minds.
|
The Shallows
What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
by Nicholas Carr
W.
W. Norton & Co, 2010
Order
a copy
Reviewed
in the Book
Stall
|
