Nicholas Carr has written a new book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains. Â The book is an expansion of his Atlantic Monthly article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Â The thesis is that the Internet, by virtue of what it is fundamentally, is altering the way its users’ brains function. Given the subtitle of his book, you can surmise that he interprets this change as for the worse.
Laura Miller’s review and defense of the book distills much of Carr’s sentiment:
Carr and I (and perhaps you) may know that reading “War and Peace” can be a far more profound experience than navigating through a galaxy of up-to-date blog postings, but to someone who can’t or won’t believe this, what else can we point to as a consequence of the withering of such a skill? What will we lose socially, politically, civilly, scientifically, psychologically, if a majority decides that the intellectual “shallows” are the proper habitat for the 21st-century mind? This needs to be spelled out because as Carr’s critics have demonstrated, fewer and fewer people take it for granted. But with that caveat, “The Shallows” remains an essential, accessible dispatch about how we think now.
The Wall Street Journal recently featured an essay by NYU professor Clay Shirky, who some might say takes a more balanced approach. Â Shirky urges critics to understand the medium of the Internet before dismissing it. Â Clearly the Internet has much to offer our cognitive society, but that is not to say it does not alter our cognitive processes.
The Internet is a tool, and like any other tool, it must be used properly. Â You ought not drive a nail with a saw, but with a hammer. Â Likewise, a book is not suited for rapid delivery of news. Â Neither is the Internet, specifically hyperlinks and short-form media, suited for content demanded critical thinking. Â Therefore, without reservation, I encourage you to read these two books.
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