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The Increase Of Technology In The Shallows By Nicholas Carr

749 Words3 Pages

Nicholas Carr argues that the exponential increase of technology has led to a more connected society but also more alienated and less able to engage with our natural capacities. Carr believes intelligent technologies like the internet amplify and numb our most intimate human capabilities, including reason, perception, memory, and emotion. In The Shallows, on page 211, Nicholas Carr states, "The price we pay to assume technology's power is alienation. The toll can be particularly high with intellectual technologies. The tools of the mind amplify and, in turn, numb the most intimate, the most human, of our natural capacities- those for a reason, perception, memory, emotion." The exponential increase of technology has led to a more connected society …show more content…

In The Shallows, it states, "I can't read War and Peace anymore," he admitted. "I've lost the ability to do that." (Carr, 7) Friedman says he can't no longer read how he usually would. Technology has changed the way people process and consume information. In "An Open Letter to High School Students about Reading," in paragraph 9, Patrick Sullivan states, "In one study, sociologists Judith C. Roberts and Keith A. Roberts found that many students see "reading" as simply forcing one's eyes to "touch" each word on the assigned pages, and many students candidly admit that they do not even read assigned materials at all. Many students read-only to finish rather than to understand what they have read." Many students have yet to be interested in reading lengthy …show more content…

In The Shallows, on page 199, it says, "Although even the initial users of the technology can often sense the changes in their patterns of attention, cognition, and memory as their brains adapt to the new medium, the most profound shifts play out more slowly, over several generations, as the technology becomes ever more embedded in work, leisure, and education- in all the norms and practices that define a society and its culture." The more technology is involved in their everyday lives, the more it will change how they think and do daily activities. These technologies have impacted their ability to think critically, remember information, and engage with others. According to Clifford Nass, "They're terrible at ignoring irrelevant information; they're terrible at keeping the information in their head nicely and neatly organized; and they're terrible at switching from one task to another." After experimenting, Nass discovered that they couldn't keep information organized nicely in their heads, and they couldn't ignore irrelevant details, which shows how the internet is impacting

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495 Words | 2 Pages

Our concentration and contemplative skills have diminished thanks to our internet usage. Carr states that: “For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information.” Information is easily accessible and no longer requires deep research. You can easily find the idea of something on the internet by skimming it. Carr believes that our mind can be shaped by using the internet daily and could be completely different than those who read books/magazines/newspapers etcetera.

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647 Words | 3 Pages

Carr is worried about technology and the effect that it has on the human brains. The essay provides a list of advances that show that change always brings this worry, but it does bring change. Carr does state that some of the changes are beneficial, but people should still worry about them. Nicholas Carr is right when he says that the internet is affecting us by making people’s attention spans shorter and is also affecting critical thinking skills.

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471 Words | 2 Pages

He notes that the development of writing and the printing press led to significant changes in the way people thought and communicated. By comparing the internet to these historical developments, Carr suggests that the digital age is simply the latest iteration in a long line of technological advances that have fundamentally altered human cognition. In addition, Carr appeals to expert testimony to support his argument. He cites studies and quotes from prominent neuroscientists and researchers who suggest that the internet may be negatively impacting our ability to concentrate and process information.

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1263 Words | 6 Pages

In his essay, he writes “once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski” (Nicholas Carr 227). He also states that as the internet becomes our primary source of information, we are distracted, and it begins to affect our ability, or at least our willingness, to read books and long pieces. In his piece, Carr refers to a 5-year study in the UK, which found that people visiting sites "exhibited 'a form of skimming activity, ' hopping from one source or site to another, and rarely returning to any source they 'd already visited. " Carr acknowledges that people read more because of the Web, but deplores that "our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged."

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154 Words | 1 Pages

In Mark Bauerlei’s Too Dumb for Complex Text, he points out that a lot of U.S students have difficulty to understand complex texts such as “U.S court decision, an epic poem, [and] an ethical treatise” in today. According to Bauerlein, students are unprepared on the skills and habits to read complex texts. He explained high school does not prepare students to read, analysis, and practice their reading skill, and social media readings will not help at all: “When teachers fill the syllabus with digital texts, having students read and write blogs, wikis, Facebook pages, multimedia assemblages, and the like, they do little to address the primary reason that so many students end up not ready for college-level reading” (Bauerlei). Bauerlei believes

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195 Words | 1 Pages

The Net is the most powerful tool that exists, it is mind-altering technology and without it, people think they are not able to reach their full potential, but people are losing their social skills in the process, The Shallows by Nicholas Carr. In the book, The Shallows, the author explains how the internet is ruining our minds Carr explains how the internet is mind-altering technology. The internet pollutes our society.

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1277 Words | 6 Pages

Sometimes it takes the right story for them to realize that. She states that some of her students have parents that do not know how to read, with only a few having parents that have a bachelor’s degree. Many of her students come from backgrounds that do not promote high literacy standards and therefore are very uninterested in reading. Advancing technology

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1008 Words | 5 Pages

, Carr uses different illustrations throughout the essay to conclude how the internet has drastically reprogram our minds over the years. Nick Carr tells the readers how reading off the internet has affected how he retains information and can barley read due to his short attention span over the years. In the first paragraph,

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844 Words | 4 Pages

The ability to read simple text for a long period of time is fading away, which brings light to how much of an impact technology is making, and how society is losing complex thinkers. Carr uses himself as an example and claims, “now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do… The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” The future of this generation is in danger, because people are developing a low attention span and low interest to delve deep and research different topics properly.

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574 Words | 3 Pages

Over generations and generations the world has seen many changes that has impacted the world and the lives of people. Some of those changes include the printing press, computers, and the smartphone. Have you ever realized that the internet might be affecting your brain? Well Nicholas Carr thinks the internet is bad and has an impact on our brain. In the book The Shallows by Nicholas Carr he claims that over many generations new technology has been created and it has been affecting our brains.

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2389 Words | 10 Pages

The book, The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr is a very interesting piece of writing. A book that is supposed to be directed to what the ‘internet doing to our brains’ takes a lot of turns in other directions. The most apparent idea from the book, is that new things are damaging to our minds. Dating all the way back to the printing press, “innovation”, has been slowly hurting the way we live.

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271 Words | 2 Pages

Nicholas Carr, What the Internet is doing to Our Brains The Shallows (2010) asserts that, “The price we pay to assume technology’s power is alienation.” He supports this assertion by saying, “They both ultimately achieve their mental and behavioral effects by shaping the synaptic organization of the brain.” Also by, “ We long to keep it activated.” The writer concludes in order for people to improve their thoughts, they will have to cope with the new technology and how they think. Carr believes that technology is taking over how people interact with each other.

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575 Words | 3 Pages

This intrigued them, because many students are “good” readers in the way that they have extensive vocabularies, can recall content, and can read rapidly. They are able to understand texts well, but only on a surface level. This means they can understand the content, but usually fail to understand the purpose of it. Haas and Flower had found that more experienced readers attempted to connect parts of a text to understand what they couldn’t before, or even to just to form a purpose for the text.

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434 Words | 2 Pages

Simply concentrating has become hard to do. “The deep reading that used to come naturally has became a struggle.” (Carr 731) Carr feels as so his mind is being influenced by the technological advancements. Even as a writer he still struggles reading a book, because of the lack of concentration he now has.

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871 Words | 4 Pages

In the book The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains by Nicholas Carr, Carr states, “Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print,”” (Carr 104). Bruce felt himself changing, he knew he was changing.

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