Nicholas Carr The Shallows Essay

732 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Internet addiction and its effects

In The Shallows, Nicholas Carr challenges the pervasive effect of Internet, citing psychology and neuroscience to prove the consequences done to our neural pathways. Technology influences the way we think, making us efficient but superficial processors who are easily distracted. There is little doubt that the Internet is reshaping our brain, but every intellectual technology does the same thing. Due the distractive and pervasive nature of the Internet, it weakens personal memory and reduces attention-spans , and interfere with students’ scholastic accomplishments. o Perhaps the biggest advantage of the Internet is its convenience, but Carr stresses that convenience is not everything. Instead, he argues that its pervasiveness is actually …show more content…

‘We want to be interrupted, because each interruption brings us a valuable piece of information… And so we ask the Internet to keep interrupting us, in ever more and different ways. We willingly accept the loss of concentration and focus, the division of our attention and the fragmentation of our thoughts, in return for the wealth of compelling or at least diverting information we receive.’ (133-4) Reduced attention-spans of serious consequences. Without being able to think long and hard on a certain subject, this may revert to academic failure or more course content reduction, in an effort to keep the school system afloat. It is very likely that the Net is the ‘most powerful mind-altering technology’. (116) With the fragmentation of thoughts, schools and eventually even governments will be forced to reform their way of thinking. The Internet rewires your brain to the ‘new normal’. Being homeschooled and using the Internet for research and classes, as well as acting as an editor for some people, I found that the more I use it, the more my ability to concentrate is reduced. During the summer, I hardly used the Internet at all, and happily reread Ivanhoe and Shakespeare without having to pause. Now, when I use it for classes again, I find that even reading familiar books such as Jane Eyre have become more tedious, and I am

Show More
Related

  • Nicholas Carr The Shallows Essay

    775 Words  | 2 Pages

    While his best arguments come from cultural criticism. Written text led to the decline of oral reading and television obliterated the radio. Every technology comes with it’s trade-offs, it just comes down to moderation. There is little doubt that the internet is changing our brain. What Carr neglects to mention, however, is how the internet can change our brain for the better. Computer games have the ability to improve cognitive tasks and increase visual attention. He doesn’t always address the good effects that the internet has had on the world. One of the better strategies Carr uses is switching his point of view from third to first person. He reflects on his personal life and how his life has changed in response to what he has learned. Carr shows how even he has his faults but, being aware of a problem is the first step to finding

    Read More

  • Nicholas Carr's In the Shallows

    1093 Words  | 3 Pages

    Carr, Nicholas G. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print.

    Read More

  • Is Google Making Us Stupid?, by Nicholas Carr

    1378 Words  | 3 Pages

    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 result of surfing endlessly on the internet doing research. He supports this statement by explaining how his fellow writers have had similar experiences in being unable to maintain their concentrations. In analyzing Carr’s argument, I disagree that the internet is slowly degrading our capacity for deep reading and thinking, thereby making us dumber. The Web and Google, indeed, are making us smarter by allowing us access to information through a rapid exchange of ideas and promoting the creativity and individualization of learning.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Hal And Me By Nicholas Carr

    1086 Words  | 3 Pages

    348). Carr introduces his theory by noting the observations in which the reading habits of avid internet users such as himself began to deteriorate (Carr, 2010, p. 348). What initially prompted Carr to invest in a computer was the vast variety of applications and communication tools which benefitted him in his career (Carr, 2010, p. 348). However, he claimed the internet progressed to be a hinderance to his capability to concentrate and work efficiently, thus justifying this phenomenon has changed the way both himself and others were learning (Carr, 2010, p. 349). Drained without having his daily ounce of technology, Carr molded into the man who slowly progressed to be dependent on the internet (Carr, 2010, p. 354).

    Read More

  • Malcolm Gladwell's Small Change: People Are Uncomfortable With Internet Technology

    1393 Words  | 3 Pages

    Like Gladwell, Nicholas Carr believes the internet has negative effects. In his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Carr attempts to show as the internet becomes our primary source of information, it diminishes the ability to read books and extensive research. Carr goes on to give a very well researched account of how text on the internet is designed make browsing fast and profitable. He describes how the design for skimming affects our thinking skills and attention spans. He wraps up his argument by describing what we are losing in the shift toward using the internet as our main information source. Carr suggests the learning process that occurs in extensive research and through reading is lost. While the learning process can be beneficial to scholars and intellectuals, not everyone has the capability to follow through with it. The internet offers an education that anyone can have access to and understand. Also if Carr believes the learning process is better, this option is always available for people who want to learn according to this scholarly principal. However, for the rest of the population the quick and easy access has allowed the average population to become more educated, and to expose themselves to aspects of academia that previously is reserved for

    Read More

  • Is Google Making Us Stupid?, by Nicholas Carr

    1419 Words  | 3 Pages

    With the rise of technology and the staggering availability of information, the digital age has come about in full force, and will only grow from here. Any individual with an internet connection has a vast amount of knowledge at his fingertips. As long as one is online, he is mere clicks away from Wikipedia or Google, which allows him to find what he needs to know. Despite this, Nicholas Carr questions whether Google has a positive impact on the way people take in information. In his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr explores the internet’s impact on the way people read. He argues that the availability of so much information has diminished the ability to concentrate on reading, referencing stories of literary types who no longer have the capacity to sit down and read a book, as well as his own personal experiences with this issue. The internet presents tons of data at once, and it is Carr’s assumption that our brains will slowly become wired to better receive this information.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On The Shallows

    551 Words  | 2 Pages

    I’m scrolling through the articles on Snapchat and find my way across one with an intriguing title, I instantly tap on it. I begin to scroll further down only to find myself going through extensive paragraphs of information and suddenly this article that seemed so interesting became a bore. In Nicholas G. Carr’s novel, The Shallows, he argues the internet is creating more problems to us humans than actual benefits. Our social skills are starting to lack and our interaction with technology is beginning to heighten. Humans contemplative skills are slowly fading away due to our reliance on the internet to solve our problems. Technology is inevitable by humans, seeing that individuals use it in their everyday lives. Unfortunately, this is a problem considering the use of high-tech gadgets decrease in one’s capacity for concentration, contemplation, and personal memory.

    Read More

  • Nicholas Carr

    1549 Words  | 4 Pages

    Atlantic journalist Nicholas Carr confesses that he feels something has been “tinkering with his brain.” The internet, he fears, may be messing with our minds. We have lost the ability to focus on a simple task, and memory retention is steadily declining. He is worried about the effect the internet has on the human brain, and where it may take us in the future. In response to this article, Jamais Cascio, also a journalist for the Atlantic, provides his stance on the issue. He argues that this different way of thinking is an adaptation derived from our environment. Ultimately, he thinks that this staccato way of thinking is simply a natural evolution, one that will help to advance the human race.

    Read More

  • Informative Essay On Technology And The Brain

    1401 Words  | 3 Pages

    Using technology can have certain effects on the brain. Nicholas Carr’s magazine blog, “The Web Shatters Focus, Rewrites Brains,” tells us an experiment from a ULCA professor, Gary Small. Gary Small

    Read More

  • Nicholas Carr

    1180 Words  | 3 Pages

    Carr explains it has become a part of the daily process of life. He elaborates three categories: employment, education, and leisure intertwined with the audience's lifestyle. Carr emphasizes some may use all three. This illustrates that constantly being in contact with computerized machinery, therefore, handing personal independence over to online software. Carr states that regardless of devices' form or edition, the internet is still of the essence to a majority of the public. Dubbing the web as civilizations' civilization’s "medium of choice" (p.351). Carr justifies this remark, suggesting the amount of time consumed on the net , despite providing high-speed data. Thus allowing readers to reflect on their own individual

    Read More

  • Analysis Of 'How Facts Backfire And Is Google Making USupid'

    856 Words  | 2 Pages

    Carr explains how the internet can distract us making it harder to focus on tasks. He explains how processing information has become harder. Notifications, ads, popups can make it difficult if you are trying to read an article or book (Carr 57). The internet has become the center of our attention (Carr 57). Carr is explaining how this is the reason why we are struggling to comprehend a certain piece of information. He adds in his article that scientists, researchers and educators have also noticed the difference in concentration. And in further detail, he explains that we fail to see the important information, thus affecting cognition. He says that the information we gather is not valuable unless we know the meaning behind it. Carr concludes with explaining that the more the internet evolves the less valuable information is to

    Read More

  • Does Clay Shirky's Does The Internet Make You Smarter?

    1227 Words  | 3 Pages

    The internet is ever changing, and so our minds, but can the internet mold our minds? Nicholas Carr and Michael Rosenwald support the idea that the reading we do online is making it harder to be able to sit down with a good book. In their papers they discuss the downfalls of using the web. While on the other hand author Clay Shirky challenges that thought in his piece. Shirky directly battles the idea that the internet is damaging our brains by suggesting that internet use can be insightful. In this essay I will evaluate all three articles and expose their strengths and weaknesses then add my own take on the situation.

    Read More

  • Influence Of Computer Technology

    1222 Words  | 3 Pages

    These two articles are similar in the sense that they agree that the internet and computational objects are reshaping our brain’s structure by changing our neural circuit. By using examples from their personal experiences to identify a trend in technology use, the authors illustrate that the more we bury ourselves in technology the more we are unable to understand material which leads to loss of concentration and the ability to think for ourselves. As an author, Carr finds the internet a beneficial tool, but it’s having a bad effect on his concentration span. Carr points this out by stating “Immersing myself in a book or lengthy article used to be easy, now I get fidgety, lose the thread and begin looking for something else to do” (39). He is no

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Nicholas Carr's 'Hal And Me'

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Nicholas Carr’s “Hal and Me,” an excerpt from The Shallows, Carr highlights his experience with the internet and his perspective on how the internet affects a person’s capacity of reading and absorbing information. Using his and others’ perspectives, Carr is able to write in a practical method, to which his audience can understand the impact of the internet in a relatable context.

    Read More

  • Is Google Making Us Stupid?

    609 Words  | 2 Pages

    In an era where all of the world’s information is readily available at our fingertips, it is difficult to imagine what life was like before the Internet. Today. people get anxiety attacks at the thought of a slow wireless connection. God forbid a webpage takes five minutes to load; we are left with rage and disappointment. Is the Internet making people stupid? Despite the fact that research on the detrimental effects of the Internet is still young, there is no doubt that the Internet is changing the way one thinks, but it is not necessarily making one “dumber.” What it is doing, however, is bringing to light some bad habits that are affecting the way we process information. The Internet is making us lazy and unable to memorize information.

    Read More

More about Nicholas Carr The Shallows Essay

Open Document