Enjoyable and provocative book that covers the social history of new communication technologies and their impacts on human culture. Before he even gets too deeply into the Internet -- Carr explores oral tradition, the advent of writing, the use of books and then cultural changes that happened with the invention of the printing press. Carr also explores neuroplasticity and the way memories are formed and retained -- but, interestingly, he doesn't talk much about David Wegner's theories of transactive memory.
While I do agree that reading books is important to developing critical thought and independent ideas -- there are many bits of trivia that I don't have to remember (like the name of the actress who played the maid in Gaslight). In fact - there are many things that I "stored" in other people, books or notebooks before the internet. Instead of having almanacs, encyclopedias and reference books at hand in my home, I can simply use the internet.
Finally, while Carr raises some critical issues about how people trying to think like machines affects culture -- he leaves out the basic fact that all the machines and web pages are designed by humans. There's a simple fix: change the way that websites and web pages are designed. If reading prose with hyperlinks creates a certain amount of cognitive overhead for users and makes them less successful in recall and formation of original ideas and connections -- then adjust the design to meet the goal. Provide versions of prose stripped of hyperlinks, and perhaps offer annotated versions for more in-depth research.
I find an interesting parallel in the risk of fragmented, distracted cognitive functions especially in the work place with the rise of leadership literature that exhorts leaders to establish personal connections, establish meaningfulness of work and to "tap into the collective unconscious." There's a cultural shift since the 80s publication of "Servant Leader" and so many books on mindfulness that this direction seems a natural out growth but what if it is just a response to the decreased ability of most people to focus and concentrate on complex issues? That would support Carr's claim that we're moving toward a division where book reading is a specialized task for a certain intellectual elite, while the masses move toward the highly rewarding, stimulating pursuit of tidbits of information that they can't quite weave together into a coherent whole.
Enjoyable read - I recommend it!
As an aside -- an additional data point for contextualization of information between the author's group of students who read and synthesized the facts in their reports vs the students who used online resources and just relayed them without interpretation. Humans have always used methods for externally storing information – including other people (see Wegner’s theory of “Transactive Memory”).
The same people who would have just transcribed information from an encyclopedia for their papers are the same people who would copy and paste from online sources. The people who read and understand and are able to provide a narrative with arguments and value are also the same people but who make different choices.
There are, indeed, analogs to “Facebook” weak-link friends in the real world: think of any bartender, barista, corner store owner or other people in similar public facing roles. Long before the internet, they fostered connection with hundreds or thousands of people who they could recognize by name, remember a favorite ice cream or drink and leave an impression of “friend” on such a person. The internet just allows more people to have this experience but not as a requirement of vocation but a choice of community of opinions and information.
REVIEW: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
RATING: 4-stars
© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.
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