Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
|
Loading... The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (original 2010; edition 2010)by Nicholas Carr
Work InformationThe Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr (2010)
  
» 8 more Blindpill (14) Biggest Disappointments (441) No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) teejayhanton | Mar 22, 2024 |  The author should have dedicated more than few percent of the book to the key experiments that suggest more shallow thinking patterns. And should have gone into this with diligence and looking at scale of problem. Basically as it stands a fun empty book because there is little actual work done in it. (  ) yates9 | Feb 28, 2024 |  ) BBrookes | Nov 27, 2023 | David-Block | Jul 23, 2023 |  ) Leann | Jun 27, 2023 |
 Like the majority of contemporary books, then, The Shallows does not justify its length: its natural form was always that of a pithy provocation, so as an argument for the superiority of book-length prose it is rather self-defeating.  Carr’s ability to crosscut between cognitive studies involving monkeys and eerily prescient prefigurations of the modern computer opens a line of inquiry into the relationship between human and technology. Hopefully, other writers will follow.  His new book is an expanded survey of the science and history of human cognition. ... Mr Carr’s contribution is to offer the most readable overview of the science to date. It is clearly not intended as a jeremiad. Yet halfway through, he can’t quite help but blurt out that the impact of this browsing on our brains is “even more disturbing” than he thought. Carr is a beautiful writer. His word choice, his syntax, his sequencing... all great. Born in 1959, Carr straddles the book-dominated and web-dominated worlds and is at home in both. Members of his generation, he believes, have lived their lives as a “two-act play,” consisting of an analogue youth and a digital adulthood. You could conclude that when the people educated after, say, 1990 die, there will be, in the strictest sense, no literary culture left to speak of. Mild-mannered, never polemical, with nothing of the Luddite about him, Carr makes his points with a lot of apt citations and wide-ranging erudition. Either he is very well read or he is a hell of a Googler. Belongs to Publisher SeriesAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
As we enjoy the Internet's bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Carr 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--and interweaves recent discoveries in neuroscience. Now, he expands his argument into a compelling exploration of the Internet's intellectual and cultural consequences. Our brains, scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. Building on insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a case that every information technology carries a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. The printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In contrast, the Internet encourages rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information. As we become ever more adept at scanning and skimming, are we losing our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection?--From publisher description. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)612.80285Technology Medicine and health Human physiology Nervous system Nervous System Action of Nervous System on Chemic PhenomenaLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.89)
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wikipedia in English (4)
1