Carr's Argument in Vital Paths

Because of the scattered nature of the internet, it has created an environment where the brain is neurologically changing and physically losing the cognitive brain function.

In The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, he asserts that the evolution of information and communication technology (ICTs) is having a detrimental impact on our brains despite the many benefits and advances we have made with it. His main focus is on the internet which he commonly refers to as the “universal medium” (92). Carr presents a very detailed but biased argument in which he views the internet and other technologies as the adversary of critical thinking and progress. To Carr, we are sacrificing our ability to think logically because we are choosing a simpler way to gain knowledge.

Nicholas Carr, author of the novel “The Shallows: What the internet is doing to our brains” explains in his works that media and technology is affecting the way our brain works and is used in our daily lives. Carr states, “The price we pay to assume technology’s power is alienation. The toll can be particularly high with our intellectual technologies. The tools of the mind amplify and in turn numb the most intimate, the most human, of our natural capacities - those for reason, perception, memory, emotion.”(Carr, 211) Carr continues to explain an interesting phenomena that occurred in society within the

Nicholas Carr, the author of The Shallows, wrote his book to convince further society that the internet is having an adverse effect on their brains and how they are receiving information. His major thesis for the novel was expressed when he exclaimed, "...the Internet controls what we think and the process in which we think because with its efficiency and speed, we are formulating all of our thoughts through the speed of the internet rather than through the speed of our mind." Throughout the novel, Carr discusses multiple reasons on how we have changed to depend on the internet. As well as how we have let go of older versions of technology and methods of learning because they seem insufficient compared to the internet. Carr was very biased

In his book "The Shallows," Nicholas Carr claims, “With the exception of alphabets and number systems, the Net may well be the single most powerful mind-altering technology that has ever come into general use. At the very least, it’s the most powerful that has come along since the book” (Carr, 118). Carr supports this claim through examining other early inventions of man, such as the book, and using other 's opinions and evidence to prove the Net can alter the mind. The author suggests that because of this new mind-altering technology, we are in a modern renaissance. Carr establishes a cautionary tone for his audience, anyone who does and will use the Net, to raise awareness of how the Internet is refining people 's minds.

The Internet is something that some consider their lifesavers, while others believe that it takes their life away. The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr is a novel that explores the different areas of how new technologies affect humans in different ways, regarding multi-tasking and distractions, to how new technologies make us lose a little part of ourselves. Throughout the book Carr puts forward very strong arguments, but then loses creditability with his use of fallacies in argument.

In “Is Google Making us stupid”, Carr explains how the brain is malleable and how the internet might be shaping it by literally rewiring the brains network. Carr gives a brief example of how neurons can be made and broke depending on what things shape the way things are done. By being used to instant searching and internet preferences, the brain reprograms itself in being used that certain way. He thinks by using the internet so much, we will become more and more objective and quick thinkers, and ultimately emotionless computers. He also gives examples of how the clock and typewriter changed our way of thinking in the past. Adapting this way will rewire thought processes and continue to dictate how we act. Carr’s theory may be more obvious as we continue to be reliant on technology. (Carr)

As time progresses in our technologically propelled era and the internet continues to provide as the largest network source of information, our intellectual perception of information takes on a more distinctive and less analytical approach than before. The use of the internet has seized control over the vast connection of neural pathways in our minds, influencing our experiences and essentially hindering our natural ability to apply cognitive thinking.

In this essay Carr’s appeal to logos is the strongest, because he shows the effect of internet to our brain. Carr explained how Michael Merzenich a scientist believe that our brain massively remodeled by the use of internet. In the 1970s and 1980s Michael conduct a famous series of experiment on our brains and how the neural in our brain response to this experiment. He was

In the Shallows Nicholas Carr shown his side of the argument that technology is overpowering our minds. How he proves this fact is that whenever we learn something new on the computer it takes less than 2 days for the brain to reshape itself to adapt to the new learning environment. The brian has a plasticity to being able to mold itself into a new challenge to adapt to a new circumstance. We become dependent of the internet addicted to see what is new with our friends. Finally it shows that we can’t be offline for a certain time period or we will get withdraws like a drug. This shows how the internet and technology has affected us in a terrible manner.

Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, questions the impact the technology has upon our lives. He argues that the internet prevents our ability to engage in deep reading and thus restricts our ability to think critically. He says this is due to the idea of neuroplasticity, which is where our brains change in order to adapt to the different stimuli it encounters. When books were first introduced, our brain had to rewire itself in order to achieve the ability to focus for long periods of time on text and to think deeply about it. This resulted in a literate deep thinker. However, the internet has forced our brain to rewire itself again. Carr says that “there is evidence that the cells of our brains literally develop and grow bigger with use, and atrophy or waste away with disuse” (22). Our brain has many structures that perform specific functions and the structures associated with deep thinking can decrease and eventually will serve no function if we don’t use it. We are much better thsn our ancestors. According to Carr, “the oral world of our distant ancestors may well have had emotional and intuitive depths we can no longer appreciate” (56). In other words, Carr believes that people in the past engaged in focused, immersed thinking. I believe that Nicholas Carr is right when he says that the internet is changing the way we think, however I don’t believe that we need to turn off the internet in order to reduce the chances of losing

As the internet offers us the benefits of quick and easy knowledge, it is affecting the brain’s capacity to read longer articles and books. Carr starts Is Google Making Us Stupid with the closing scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey when Dave taking apart the memory circuits that control HAL, the artificial brain of the ship. Carr feels the time he spends online is rewiring his brain. He is no longer able to concentrate long enough to read more than a few paragraphs. Even though the internet is useful, it seems to be changing the way our brain takes in information. He feels as though this brain wants to take information in the same way the internet disperses it: in

The concept of neuroplasticity has long been questioned. The term of “neuroplasticity” did not even come about until the mid-late 20th century. When the term “plastic” was used to describe the brain by a select few neuroscientists, they were laughed at and the term was never thought of as a description for the human brain. The human brain was seen as a closed circuit and one that once you had it, you definitely had it. Scientists thought the brain would not develop anymore past a certain point in your life. Norman Doidge brings the concept of neuroplasticity into reality in his book “The Brain that Changes Itself,” a book about the triumphs in the frontier of brain science.

The internet is our conduit for accessing a wide variety of information. In his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Nicholas Carr discusses how the use of the internet affects our thought process in being unable to focus on books or longer pieces of writing. The author feels that “someone, or something, has been tinkering with [his] brain” over the past few years (Carr 731). While he was easily able to delve into books and longer articles, Carr noticed a change in his research techniques after starting to use the internet. He found that his “concentration often [started] to drift after two or three pages” and it was a struggle to go back to the text (Carr 732). His assertion is that the neural circuits in his brain have changed as a

Nicholas Carr published The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains in 2011 as a result of his own personal experiences and observations of his own behavior. The book was published by W.W. Norton & Company with ISBN 978-0-393-33975-8. Carr began working on the book after he noticed that since the birth of the internet, he did not think in the same ways that he used to think; he was easily distracted and had trouble concentrating on tasks requiring a lot of thought (2011). This effect, he noticed, was not unique to him. Many of his colleagues reported that they too had lost a lot of interest in reading books, had trouble concentrating and were easily distracted (Carr, 2011). What if, Carr wondered, everyone doesn’t just prefer to do their reading on the internet for its inherent convenience and speed but rather, what if the internet was actually changing the way we all think?