The Shallows
2010 • 280 pages
Ratings26
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings26
Average rating3.7
"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. - Publisher.
Reviews with the most likes.
I thoroughly enjoyed the tons and the author's ability to weave in history and science. Think what you will about the Internet–this book is worth the few hours it takes to read.
Phenomenal book! Usually, I don't write reviews of more than 3-4 words, but this book was an excellent pleasure to read that I cannot resist to fully acknowledge about how well written this book is. I won't give away contents of the books, which I leave it to the readers to figure out. I read this book out of curiosity and I was surprised at the level of details it gave me and the depth of the authors' research is commendable. I was fully indulged in reading this book from the start. Possibly one of those rare books I've enjoyed reading from the beginning and the one of those authors whose train of thoughts and concerns matched with mine.
This book talked about a lot of subtle ideas which I haven't seen any other author talk about (and I wish someone did), which may explain why I enjoyed this book.
I tried really hard to not just type, “Ok, boomer” and hit post.
Maybe it's just the age of the book showing a smidge, but the things this guy bemoans hardly seem catastrophic. Kindles come with the Internet built into the price! The Indianapolis Symphony lets people vote by text for the encore song! There are children who use laptops instead of books!
I am far from a tech-only booster. I think plenty of people would do well to thoughtfully reconsider the value of technology to the extent devices should be a tool. What this author misses is what I was after: reasonable arguments to analyze whether reading that book on your iPad is actually more distracting. Do you sit down to read the “newspaper” only to get sucked into Twitter? That stuff is problematic.
I'm sure many of us could remember our parents complaining we “always had our nose in a book”, as if it was a bad thing. But unlike reading, which the author tries to hold up as far back as Gutenberg, people didn't walk around incapable of working because they were reading. People didn't have “reading addictions”.
Tech like our phones should be tools, but the apps on them are increasingly engineered to be addictive and sociologically sticky.
This book doesn't get very deep into that.
Good book, but went into a lot of detail about specific things and repeated itself some. I'd rather have read a short blog post about it... which is ironically what the book is about 😂 (our short attention spans)
