The promise of the Web is the world at our fingertips. Thousands of hours of research can be yours with a few adept keystrokes. Entertainment options are unlimited and at your command. Yet something is not right. Instead of intellectually flourishing, we have twitchy distractedness. Where is the contemplation, the deep thinking?
In this age of "content" abundance, why do we feel so dumb? In "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains," tech journalist Nicholas Carr attempts an answer: It's the medium, stupid. We've focused on what we can find/read/see -- that legendary Velvet Underground performance, the side effects of modafinil -- and we've lost sight of the real problem. Channeling Marshall McLuhan, Carr maintains that we are "too busy being dazzled or disturbed by the programming to notice what's going on in our heads." Our reading and thinking have adapted to the computer screen with consequences good and ill.
Carr presents a damning case against a life jacked into the Net, including the startling revelation that prolonged usage alters our brain physiology. Because the human brain is capable of incredible change even into adulthood (neuroscientists call it plasticity), we adapt readily to new tools. The "single most mind-altering" tool is the Internet, as it "delivers precisely the kind of sensory and cognitive stimuli -- repetitive, intensive, interactive, addictive -- that have been shown to result in strong and rapid alterations in brain circuits and functions."
In other words, the Web is changing our brains!
In this age of "content" abundance, why do we feel so dumb? In "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains," tech journalist Nicholas Carr attempts an answer: It's the medium, stupid. We've focused on what we can find/read/see -- that legendary Velvet Underground performance, the side effects of modafinil -- and we've lost sight of the real problem. Channeling Marshall McLuhan, Carr maintains that we are "too busy being dazzled or disturbed by the programming to notice what's going on in our heads." Our reading and thinking have adapted to the computer screen with consequences good and ill.
Carr presents a damning case against a life jacked into the Net, including the startling revelation that prolonged usage alters our brain physiology. Because the human brain is capable of incredible change even into adulthood (neuroscientists call it plasticity), we adapt readily to new tools. The "single most mind-altering" tool is the Internet, as it "delivers precisely the kind of sensory and cognitive stimuli -- repetitive, intensive, interactive, addictive -- that have been shown to result in strong and rapid alterations in brain circuits and functions."
In other words, the Web is changing our brains!
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