What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains - Essay Example

Book Review Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains. New York: W.W. Norton, Print. In the current technical world, when reading is gradually becoming obsolete and less people have the habit of indulging in good literature, the book “The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains” by Nicholas Carr, has written a book on exactly the similar trend. Hence, it feels odd to write a review about a book that focuses on the internet trends and book reading as “old-fashioned” and “silly”. It is more of a technical book that engages into the workings of our brains to reflect on how the Internet is affecting the way we, “think, read and remember”. The writer grasps the attention of the writer through its fascinating revelations. Carr celebrates and admits in the book that the internet has given has many leisure facilities and conveniences, providing us quick and easy to access services. He has reflected on the notion, that with the advent of Internet and its overpowering nature in our lives, human mind has also become a technical mind. Internet has changed the way human mind thinks, it only encourages it to click and flick, losing its interest in the literature and reading good books. One of the reasons, for loss of interest is that internet has lessened our power to focus, Carr admits himself that he cannot read a book without losing concentration and his mind wandering after every few minutes. Carr reflects that “the Net and multimedia strains our cognitive abilities, diminishing our learning and weakening our understanding” (129). Carr has exhibited through different relations that because of the distractive nature of the internet and the various digital technologies, fewer and fewer people feel interested in introspective, deep reading activities. Carr is one of those technology writers who does not indulge in geeky tech writing, rather he grips his reader by beautifully crafted narrative and turns the technical details into sheer poetry. Carr starts the book mainly my admitting his own weaknesses in focusing and his distractive mind. He admits that he has been unable to focus lately and his mind is wandering to different other unrelated things and activities. He admits that it is not just about reading the books but he also has trouble focusing on other tasks as well and he keeps forgetting things and his memory is not as good as it used to be. He thinks that although the new media is changing the way we think and affecting our brain in several ways, it has several side-effects and one of the most observable and noticeable ones are that our brain is losing the power to focus. He is of the view that the side-effects of Internet outweigh its efficiencies. Carr states that “The Web is a technology of forgetfulness” (193) and supports his case with various examples and philosophical contemplations. The Windows multitasking system is one example to start with. Before the advent of this system, people used to work on one task at a time; either send a mail or type an article. Now with the option of performing more than one tasks at a time, people have more distractions as different applications are running at the same time. People are showing less productivity because of their loss of concentration and distractive behaviour. Another convincing evidence put forward by Carr, was the study carried out in 2008 that reviewed 24 million academic articles published between 1945 and 2005. Although internet has provided an easier method of publishing the articles and also finding the papers, nevertheless scholars are using fewer citations and view fewer previous articles and focus more on the recent publications. And the result turns out to be all of us reading the same thing, even in the digitalized world providing us everything for our information. Carr rejects the current philosophy that the availability of information by the Web has allowed our brain to “free-up” space and made room for more productivity and mental processing. Carr disagrees, “Those who celebrate the ‘outsourcing’ of memory to the Web have been misled by a metaphor” (191). He suggests that we are only losing our ability to think in a systematic manner and improve our learning capabilities, and in reality reducing our intellectual powers in the process of handing the duties of learning process to the Web. He says, “When a person fails to consolidate a fact, an idea, or an experience in long-term memory, he’s not ‘freeing-up’ space in his brain for other functions” (192). Carr is of the view that the process of formulating long-term memory is not constraining and burdening our brain, rather it is an intellectual process that improves our learning as well as our intelligence. When we use the Internet as a supplement of our personal memory we are only bypassing a process of learning and hence we are dulling our brains, and depriving it of learning exercises. There are two types of knowledge, as explained by Carr, deep domain expertise and knowing where to to find relevant information. Although the Internet gives easy access to all the required information, it gradually lessens our deep domain expertise because of the digital technologies we do not need to store information in our mind. Carr indulges into historical inventions and relates to how their inventions also affected our behaviours and attitudes as well. He suggests that when the typewriter was invented, the philosopher Nietzsche also observed a change in his writing style. He started using short and choppy sentences and it only occurred by the use of a new medium. Similarly when the wrist watch was invented, although people found themselves to be more efficient but also felt more tired and exhausted. The reason was they were not functioning according to their own bodily clocks rather according to the rhythms set forward by other people. Carr relates that all the technologies change our behaviours and attitudes gradually and we are unable to realize them. Similar is the case with the Web which is affecting our deep-brain thinking powers. In the last chapter, Carr turns to a more emotionally relevant aspect, that the Internet also makes us lose a part of ourselves. Clocks made us lose our natural bodily clocks, maps took away the powers to recognition capacities, typing devices lose the capability to contemplate and write and other similar examples. Internet is not only taking away the capabilities to think and contemplate but also snatching away our touch with the real word. Our brain is pressured constantly to reply to e-mails, text messages, look into our phones for time, log on to websites for various purposes, and hence in the process we live more inside the Web world rather than in the real world. Carr also comments that the Web is turning our brains into mush. He relates this to what the author, John Freeman, said in his book “The Tyranny of E-mail”, slow communication. Internet has turned our brains to communicate slowly, losing its ability to remain alert and highly responsive. Carr also mentions in the chapter entitled “On the Writing of This Book”, various methods and steps he had personally taken to avoid digital distractions. However, he does not explain much and only restricts to limited personal reflections. Carr has also indulged in cultural criticism and its digression with the advent of the Internet. The invention of the text messages led to decline of oral poetry, televisions obliterated the radio play, and movable types eliminated the illuminated manuscripts and many other culturally relevant examples. Nicholas Carr has exhibited ability to represent and write about the technical dimensions of our life in a very philosophical and culturally relevant manner. His examples seem convincing and though-provoking. Many devices we use, such as the Google and the Windows system, and various practices we do are mentioned in a very analytical and applicable manner. The author has succeeded in creating stimulating connections with real life. His main thesis of Internet as a distractive tool affecting the learning process and concentrating powers of our brain is supported by various convincing researches and real life observations. Indeed, human mind has lost interest in behaviours that require long hours of concentration and focus, such as reading a good book. Carr very truthfully states that, “We shouldn’t allow the glories of technology to blind our inner watchdog to the possibility that we’ve numbed an essential part of our self” (212). I strongly agree with this concept that the Web should not be allowed to obliterate our connection with the real world and our intellectual abilities. However, we should also not lose sight of the fact, that if the properties and services of the digital world are properly managed and used, they can serve to do glorious things for human as well. Read More