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Nicholas Carr The Shallows Summary

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In the world of today, the Internet is everywhere. It helps us collect information and stay connected. But is it worth it? Nicholas Carr shares his thoughts in his book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. He believes that people are becoming more shallow minded individuals with the use of the Internet. Ever since the Internet became widely and constantly used, people are finding it harder to concentrate, and therefore only scanning information, instead of looking in depth, as well as feeling the urge to take in more and more information. I agree with Carr’s beliefs because this is an unnatural and simplified way of thinking, and it will only get worse with the inevitable advances in technology that are yet to come. …show more content…

Once Carr noticed a change in the way his brain worked, he claims, “It was then I began worrying about my inability to pay attention to one thing for more than a couple of minutes…my brain, I realized, wasn’t drifting, it was hungry. It demanded to be fed the was the Net fed it—and the more it was fed, the hungrier it became.”(Carr 16) Because of the endless amount of things available on the Internet, the brain wants to keep searching for more and more. There is no limit, but it seems to be a slippery slope. Once you start, you can’t stop. With this new platform of endless info, Carr feels surrounded, in a way, “I don’t remember feeling the anxiety of what we today call ‘information overload’” (Carr 12) With books, the information you take in is in depth, and fed to you slowly. But with the Internet, the information is given to you, cite after cite, page after page. This makes more time to fill your brain with “on the surface” facts.
Nicholas Carr’s book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains explains the ups, but mostly downs of the Internet and how it affects our thoughts and actions. The Internet has caused people to become less concentrated, as well as more “hungry” for more information. Carr makes it very clear that he has experienced these common side effects ever since he started using the Internet, and so have I. This is an important and pressing issue that

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