Rating Technology In Nicholas Carr's 'The Shallows'

The digital age is forming our brains into 140 characters and making us express ourselves in little yellow faces. When we’re bored we go straight for technology. We are more distracted, have decreased attention spans and most importantly addicted. Science has gone a long way and so far has proven that the technology produced from it has mind altering abilities that affect our daily lives.

In the Netflix series Black Mirror, we see a society that is completely reliant and addicted to technology. An episode that stood out was “Nosedive” (S3E1). Everything in society is based on likes. In this episode, it shows the obsessiveness people have with their phone, but it is taken to a new extreme. The main character, Lacy, often uses a fake smile to portray her happiness which she uses to get her likes. In her world, there is a rating system which acts as an almost currency and controls basically all aspects of life. This leads to Lacys downfall because she was
A whole generation has grew up with a bright screen and a quick dopamine release and have gotten used to it. In Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows”, Carr noticed a change in his own ability to concentrate. "I'd sit down with a book, or a long article," He told NPR, "and after a couple of pages my brain wanted to do what it does when I'm online: check email, click this chronic state of distraction "follows us" he argued, long after we shut down our computers”. "Neuroscientists and psychologists have discovered that, even as adults, our brains are very plastic," Carr explains. "Technology is so pervasive it can be hard to put down the phone or turn off the laptop. But spending too much time with digital devices can be detrimental to personal relationships and even dangerous. This can be a risk because people are wired to pick up they’re device when unoccupied such at a stop light or even while driving. We have learned to become more distracted over the past 20