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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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Vargas 1 Internet In the essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” the author Nicholas Carr suggests the idea of the internet can make people concentrate less on reading two or three pages. Carr senses his attention span decreases whenever he tries to read an article. He believes it's because the internet is making us slothful. The internet can be significant to our life making it easier for people to find what they are looking for, but it's making us have trouble reading lengthy articles.

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According to the prominent pathologist Bruce Friedman, admitted, “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.” Carr cites a few studies of internet behavior that is influencing our brain to lack concentration. He proves

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Humanity is in a perpetual state of trying to make living in the world an easier place. In just a few seconds, people can access information at their disposal, instead of having to look through different books to find what you need. But the question arises; does this boundless place for information honestly make us more informed than before we had the internet? Joe Keohane, the author of the article “How Facts Backfire,” is a political journalist who has also written articles on technology and culture.  

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In the book, The Shallows, Carr explains how people think they can not reach their full potential without the internet. ”The net also provides a high system for delivering response and rewards. (Pg. 117)” Because the internet can allow people to talk to each other in a matter of seconds, people are always distracted by their

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The human mind is changing as a result of technology, and even Batson agrees with Carr on this saying, “There is no question our habits are changing… The Web is different in almost all aspects from a book” (Batson 259). This change from deep contemplative thought to reading thousands of quick snippets does not have to be seen only as negative. While they agree on the change, Carr and Batson have different views on the ways in which this change affects

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"The net is designed to be an interruption system, a machine geared to dividing attention," - Carr argues that the internet is designed to distract us and prevent us from engaging in deep and focused thinking. "The more we use the Web, the more we train our brain to be distracted... we’re losing our ability to concentrate," - Carr suggests that the constant distractions and multitasking involved in using the internet are making us less able to focus and concentrate. "The depth of our intelligence hinges on our ability to transfer information from working memory to long-term memory," - Carr suggests that the constant bombardment of information and lack of deep focus on any one topic is hindering our ability to remember and retain information. " The Web's cacophony of stimuli short-circuits both conscious and unconscious thought, preventing our minds from thinking either deeply or creatively," - Carr argues that the internet's constant barrage of information and distractions is preventing us from engaging in deep and creative thinking. "We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration,

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Lincoln High Professor Brian Olson English 110 April 9, 2024 “Is The Internet Making Us Stupid” In his controversial article, Nicholas Carr raises pressing questions about the impact of the internet and search engines like Google. He opens by reflecting on his own experience of struggling to maintain focus while reading lengthy texts after spending so much time skimming information online (Carr 318). This makes Carr question if the internet may be changing our mind, concentration, and how we read. Carr began to pull information from scholars at University College London, who conducted a study to prove that people skim instead of reading.

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Carr cites Socrates’ opinion as important and it develops credibility for Carr, because it shows the concerns respected figures had about its effect on the public as each revolutionary technology became popular. Additionally, Carr mentions his personal experiences with the internet and technology to further his credibility as a knowledgeable writer. Carr writes about how he easily used to read long stretches of prose for hours without getting tired, but now he cannot concentrate after reading a couple of pages at a time (314). Carr ponders on why his attention span is getting shorter and links it to his increased use of the internet. As being a credible writer about the issues of technology and the internet, Carr feels confident that he and other people worldwide cannot concentrate on long readings due to the ease of reading on the

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With an abundant amount of internet usage, studies show the development of implications in our brain such as short-term attention spans and scattered thinking. When we work online, our brains are constantly pressured to take in vast amounts of information. Think about when you are reading an article on the internet and then all of the sudden that really interesting ad pops up, you just totally forgot about what you're reading. “We are becoming mere signal-processing units, quickly shepherding disjointed bits of information into and then out of short-term memory” Carr explains that the internet is considerably reducing our ability to concentrate which is developing scattered thinking. Continually being exposed to these things are negatively affecting the way we process and interpret the information we are obtaining through the

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NET INFLUENCE 3 Carr analyzes how his mind feels different, while reading, focusing is more strenuous. Since internet usage is expanding, I agree this phenomenon is rising among many people. For teenagers, focusing is especially difficult, this is due to the shortened attention

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In The Shallows, Nicholas Carr discusses the internet’s effect on human thought. This is perfectly shown in Chapter Nine which is titled “Search, Memory.” Carr speaks on how the internet effects long term memory. The chapter quotes one of the smartest minds in the history of Western Civilization, Socrates. Socrates is quoted, “Writing down their thoughts and reading the thoughts of others had written down, they become less dependent on the contents of their own memory.”

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Rhetorical Analysis In the article “Is Google Making us Stupid?”, author Nicholas Carr expresses his idea that the internet is taking over society and our thinking process. Google is affecting our abilities to read books, longer articles, and even older writings. Carr believes that we have become so accustomed to the ways of the internet, and we are relying on Google 's ability to sort through the details for us so we don 't have to, in order to get the information we find necessary more efficiently. He finds that this process has become almost too handy, and that it is corrupting us from becoming better educated.

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Nicholas Carr, as a writer believes that because we use the web to much, we are losing the ability to deep think. When talking to others that he interacts with, he has started to think that he is losing some of his mental processing when reading long passages. He attributes this to the fact that when we go online to find information we skim for the information we want. We don’t read it in depth. One of his examples is Bruce Friedman, a bloggers who talks about computers and medicine, he has said that now he has “almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print”.

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In “The Swallows”, Carr shows us how the internet has become more popular than the old alternative books and magazines. The internet has became our life from day to day, as we know it is slowly changing the way our brains think. In this book, his reasonings were to help understand the importance that the internet has had on our upcoming generations. HIs main focus was on what is going on to the humans brains. All of his research on what it has done to our brains is causing us to realize more of his understandings.

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Even just a couple years ago, if a student was writing a research paper, they would go to the library to read and learn about the topic, so they could complete the assignment. Now people depend on the internet to do most of the searching for them. With information easily attained, people no

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