Preview

Nicholas Carr The Shallows

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
463 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Nicholas Carr The Shallows
In Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows, he talks about many things, including the titular topic of What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. He relates the story of the development of the written word, and the book, and the computer, and then the Internet, telling how the advent of each sparked a revolution in our culture, and, in the case of the internet, in the way we think, going on to say that “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski.” (Carr, 7) due to his interactions with the internet. He provides a story that could give an answer to the question we’ve been asking. How is the exponential increase of information that we process in all forms of media affecting the way we live? In

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    information not allowing our brain to work hard enough. Carr claims, "the internet has altered his…

    • 674 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr explains his point of view of how the brain is being reprogramed due to technology. He states that the Internet changes how we receive and process information and that surfing the web takes almost no concentration and that is why we lose focus easily. Carr gives his experiences as an example in how he is no longer able to keep concentration to even complete reading an article. His main point is that search engines, like Google, and the internet in general is damaging our ability to think, and that we were probably better in the past when reading was done…

    • 1007 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although information is available by a click of a button, the internet is influencing both our mind and our reading habits, life without Internet is unthinkable, so much so that it has become a universal medium. Carr grabs the attention of the reader by stating a quote from a movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,” the final scene where Dave loses his mind (533). After that, Carr makes a connection of how the movie ends and how deep reading is a struggle due to the countless hours on the internet.…

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In his essay “Is google making us stupid” Nicholas Carr explains how the internet has helped us to gather vast amounts of information very quick, but also how it has affected our attention span when the time comes to read long pieces of texts. Carr also feels that our brains are constantly getting rewired due to the amount of time we spend online has caused him to lose concentration when he is reading. Besides, make it easier to find information and rewiring our brains the internet has changed the way we comprehend what we are reading. Carr states that before the internet he could easily get caught in the argument of what he was reading and that he no longer does it because his concentration starts to drift away after reading a couple of pages.…

    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Google-Making USupid

    • 202 Words
    • 1 Page

    In “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Nicholas Carr expresses his concerns on how the Internet is changing the way his mind works and how it’s affecting him in a negative way. Carr suggests that the Internet offers us the benefit of quick and easy knowledge. However, he goes into details about how we merely rely on Google that makes us process information differently from the past and how it’s degrading our critical-thinking skill. Moreover, he touches upon his own experience how accessible the Internet is with hyperlinks and flashy ads that can divert his attention from reading. With this, he noticed that his capacity on concentration for reading has been taken away. Carr proved that others have experienced the same thing that he did…

    • 202 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The general argument made by Nicholas Carr in his work, “From The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains,” is that technology is dangerous to the brain, conditioning the body that they need more technology, and less of anything else. More Specifically, Carr states that, “I used to find it easy to immerse myself in a book or a lengthy article...Now my consideration starts to drift after a page or two” (Carr par. 2). In this passage, Carr is suggesting that the effects of technology and the internet have imposed on him that he needs the internet to function at a proper level. He thinks that this is going to be a problem in the future of society. He is suggesting that we will be unable to communicate…

    • 313 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the thrilling adventure, Finding Nemo, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich, Marlin, the father of Nemo, goes through life very cautiously, scared from everything that seems unsafe for him and his son. He has been like this ever since his wife, Coral, passed away trying to save her baby eggs. Nemo was the last egg left so Marlin had to protect him with his life. First of all, while Marlin is taking Nemo to school he tells him “That's my boy. So, first we check to see that the coast is clear. We go out and back in. And then we go out, and back in. And then one more time--out and back in. And sometimes, if you wanna do it four times--” (Stanton, Unkrich, X:XX) This shows that Marlin tries to keep his son safe from everything around him.…

    • 289 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Nicholas Carr’s book, “The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing to our Brains,” he makes the powerful point that in order to assume technology’s power, especially intellectual technology, we must pay a particularly high price. Carr states this idea in one quote from his book, “The price we pay to assume technologies power is alienation. The toll can be particularly high with our intellectual technologies. the tools of the mind amplify and in turn numb the most intimate, the most human, of our natural capacities- those for reason perception, memory, emotion(pg 211).” This price for intellectual technologies can range from a lowered ability to pull up memorized information, a shorter attention span, having a harder time learning new information, or even a changed perception of our world. All of these points help show how the internet is affecting our brains physically and mentally.…

    • 877 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Straight into the beginning, Carr starts his article with a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey where Dave is trying to disconnect HAL, the space robot, from its artificial brain because of the mishaps HAL made. Carr uses this scene to connect to how he can feel that the internet is reprogramming his brain negatively to think differently than how it was before. He includes how he is struggling with the negative effects of technology that he developed like poor concentration. Carr mentions that anyone can fall into training their brain into losing the capacity to focus, including him. He has difficulty focusing on reading after two or three pages and begins to look for something else to do. Carr states that the internet “is chipping…

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Whether it be the people a person spends time with or a product they use frequently, they become influenced. The technology that surrounds an individual has the potential to change who they are. The human brain, being the highly adaptable organ that it is, is susceptible to this sort unintentional shift. Carr explains, “As we use what the sociologist Daniel Bell has called our ‘intellectual technologies’— the tools that extend our mental rather than our physical capacities— we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies.” (Carr 576). This means that in terms of the internet, we are coming into thinking and operating more like it. This way of thinking makes sense why people have adopted ‘text speak’ among other things. Just like the internet, society continues to aim to be efficient, cutting corners to keep things quick. Society becomes what it creates; the digital world parallels the human…

    • 836 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There have been many technological advances that there is too many to count, but one of the most world-changing ones is the internet. Ever since the web was created it has revolutionized the way we: think, talk, and do. For many people, the web has become a major part of their lives. The web is the most powerful mind-altering technology that is causing us to lose some of our most human traits. Nicholas Carr wrote a book called The Shallows that is about the mind-altering technology advancement the web.…

    • 587 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The overall subject of The Shallows is how intellectual technology influence the way we think. In his work in neurological research, Nicholas Carr found the opposite between the neuronal circuits of book readers and the neuronal circuits of those who use the internet. Therefore, he concludes in his study that the technologies we use to find store, and share information can literally change our mind, our neuronal circuits. Moreover, the internet includes full of interruptions and distractions which is an obstacle in the way we acquire deep thought, concentration. Going through history of technology, when the Greek discovered the first complete phonetic alphabet to now the Internet, Carr demonstrate how our brain is changing along…

    • 1283 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Though Amusing Ourselves to Death was published in 1985 and The Shallows was published in 2010, both authors tried to inform its readers of the alarming signs. We are blind and not even aware of it. The invention of technology has transformed it users to become flat out lazy. Carr once said, “ Once I was a scuba diver in a sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy of a Jet Ski.” We no longer can enjoy the adventure of scuba diving because it takes too long. We now prefer Jet Ski’s so that we can go accelerating speeds and feel the adrenaline rush. At one time, we possessed a linear mind. We were focused and enjoyed reading without distractions. It’s harder now to sit down and read a book, write an essay, or even focus. The Internet has changed our minds and us. In spending just 5 hours on the Internet, our brain can rewire itself. The human brain contains many things that shape the way we think. Our brains contain 100 billion neurons that have different shapes and sizes. The normal size neuron produces 1,000 synapses, which help us understand what to think, who we are, and how to feel. Neurologists once thought that…

    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Digital Nation Analysis

    • 738 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the Frontline video titled Digital Nation, Rachel Dretzin and Douglas Rushkoff explored the impact of digital media on today’s society. In the video they cover everything from it’s impact on the brain, to it’s impact on students, to it’s impact on the military. Nothing is spared in this investigation on the effect of digital media, and growing up in a wired world. However the main thing I managed to take away from this film was it has had a dramatic effect on human abilities and communication, which I will be discussing in the following paragraphs.…

    • 738 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The internet is a powerful medium. It is the main source for most human’s entertainment, news, and even education. The internet is a world of opportunities; it has opened people ears and eyes to others divergence. However, with the internet comes the huge social media platform where people do outrageous things like take pictures of their food and put it online or make stupid videos to entertain us for six seconds. Is the internet slowly decaying our brain? Author, Steven Pinker does not believe so; he argues that technology is “the only thing that will keep us smart.” It is not the internet fault for human’s stupidity. However, author Nicolas Carr asserts that “our intelligence will flatten into artificial intelligence” (44) ultimately disagreeing with Pinker’s statement.…

    • 867 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays