The internet is the newest mass media and has the potential to change human society. It has given us the ability to access almost all of human knowledge in an instant. It has also allowed the constant connection between friends and family. As technologies go it may well be the most influential in human history. The internet is one of the most impactful technologies in human history as presented in The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, specifically because of its speed, interconnectivity, and its impacts on the human mind. The internet’s speed has rapidly increased the speed of communication between people. Carr experienced this when he started blogging “ Blogging junked the traditional publishing apparatus. You’d type something up, code a few …show more content…
“The net differs from most of the mass media it replaces in an obvious and very important way: it’s bidirectional.”(pg 85). Unlike newspapers and books which, for the most part, only allow one way communication, the internet allows for rapid replies. This can allow for collaboration over long distances which can dramatically increase the speed certain projects are completed. Carr also experienced this “You’d also get something your rarely got with more formal writing: direct responses from readers … It felt new and liberating.”(pg15). The changes in Carr’s publishing allowed him to get feedback on his writing from readers helping him improve and adapt to their new reading style. Since the internet allows anyone to contribute the sheer amount of things available to find can be liberating or overwhelming.
The internet’s speed and directionality set it apart from media that from other media that has come before it but the internet’s true impact is the ways it changes how we all think. “Many producers are chopping their products to fit the shorter attention spans of online consumers.” (pg94). Since the internet is so fast most if not all consumers have had their attention span reduced which has been responded to by online producers. This change is one of the key focuses of Carr’s book specifically that human society is transitioning from the contemplative book reading
Nicholas Carr, The Shallows( 2008) argues that the net is the single-most powerful thing that has changed the way we think. Carr supports this assertion by explaining how we use the web, and how the web has become his all-purpose medium. People use the web for multiple things, whether it is reading an article to paying their
A huge beneficial effect of the Internet is time-efficiency because it no longer takes days to find research. Fortunately, it only takes a couple of minutes to do a few Google searches. Another benefit to the Internet, in comparison to the last example, is that it is a channel for most of the world’s information. For Carr, as for others, the Internet is becoming a universal medium. Lastly, it is probable that we may be doing more reading today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was a choice of interest. It is assumed that we may do more reading today because not only do we have access to a variety of texts, but also a numerous amount of ways of communicating. For example, social media accounts and text-messaging. A negative effect of the Internet is that it is chipping away capacity for contemplation. The Internet is
Carr has a more negative opinion about new technology than Cascio. Carr believes the internet and previous technological advancements have caused many changes in society, including reducing people’s ability to focus. Carr says, “What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.” This is just one of the many times that he blames the internet for the changes that have occurred in the past decade.
Before entering the final crest of Carr’s gist, he reasons that many are bound to experience the negative effects of the Net because of its versatility and resilience. Carr state’s “Although mildly disorienting at first, I quickly adjusted to the Kindle’s screen and mastered the scroll and page-turn buttons. Nevertheless, my eyes were restless and jumped around as they do when I try to read for a sustained time on the computer.” The uniqueness of the Kindle brought on new changes in the way Carr was able to read, and describes the effects of reading on the device as distracting. He then explains about the internet, “When the Net absorbs a medium, it re-creates that medium in its own image. It not only dissolves the medium's physical
As Carr continues, he speaks of his extended use of the internet over the last decade, explaining that all information that he once painstakingly searched for is done in minutes with the use of search engines. In doing this, Carr places blame on the internet for breaking his ability to concentrate. Carr presents his arguments in a way that his readers could easily agree. He gradually works up to the idea that the internet has weakened his ability to focus, and as he does this he makes several general statements about the internet’s nature. These points on the net’s nature are so basic that any reader of his article would be inclined to agree with them, and this lends itself to help readers believe the argument Carr wishes to propose. Because it would be hard to provide factual evidence to support his claims, Carr effectively uses logical reasoning to convince the reader.
“The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing” (Carr 773). Carr’s point is because people are using the web, it is making it harder for them to concentrate and process information. Carr and Turkle both suggest in their articles that people now have lost the ability to be able to concentrate and to be
Carr mentions his personal experience with technology and how it has affected him. He points out his “concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages” (961). Carr isn’t the only one who has been affected by technology; he tells us that even his “acquaintances” have had similar experiences. His acquaintances say, “The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing” (962). What once used to come natural to us has become difficult. People used to rely on books for multiple reasons when it came to research but now that technology has been used more frequently books are not that common. Carr says “Research that once required days . . . can be done in minutes” (962). Carr is mentioning the benefits of the Internet, for his argument he is using both sides so that the reader can relate to his article and understand where he is coming from. Carr quotes Marshall McLuhan when he points out that “the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation” (962). Although fast research is great and easy to access it has its flaws. Carr mentions that
In his writing, Carr explains how his mind has become much more erratic since his use of the internet. “I get fidgety, lose the thread, [and] begin looking for something else to do,” Carr says (572). The availability of information that people have these days is astonishing, and their intake of it is even more considerable. In connection to the information people have access to in our day and age, it has promoted a culture of disinterest and boredom. You are able to see this clearly in a study of online research habits, conducted by scholars from University College London. The subjects displayed “a form of skimming activity,” jumping from source to source. They normally would read no more than one or two pages of a book or article before they would go to another site, seldom returning to any source they had already viewed.
Each and everyday around the world there are new advances in technology attempting to make life more simple. In the article by Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, Carr explains his beliefs on how the internet is causing mental issues in today's society. Carr starts with his own opinion, he says the Internet is causing him to lose focus quickly. He cannot stay hooked to a book. He writes about his life being surrounded by the internet and how it has created problems, like not being able to stay focused on a reading; but it is interesting how he says the Internet has been a ‘godsend’ in his chosen profession. Carr uses a great deal of rhetorical appeals to try to connect with the audience. He compares the past and the present and how it has altered the
While trying to attract the reader, Carr utilizes a lot of expository claims. He thinks about the distinctions of the past and the present and how he feels how it has changed himself, as well as others also and how they can understand and center because of the developing way of the web. While looking at this, he aggregated research from a few credited authors who feel the same way he does about the impacts of the web. Carr utilizes individual experience, striking symbolism, and examination supported by research to snare the viewer in and induce them that in today's general public, the web is bringing about predominantly issues.
The Flip Side of Technology In his article “From The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains,” Nicholas Carr argues that the increasing usage of the internet has had a negative impact on the our attention span and the way our brains work. Carr states, “What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation” (Carr par 5). Carr maintains this idea throughout the article expressing his concerns for how the internet has shortened his attention span and ability to focus.
In Carr’s description of the Internet, he explains why it is affecting humans. He leaves the technology as a virus that absorbs our commands, injects information into us, and then scatters and spreads our concentration. However, before labeling the Internet as a human made pest that has gone wild, Carr makes one last appeal to ethos by stating possible benefits of this rapidly capable means of statement as well as his own faults of being a worrywart.
The Internet has indeed changed how we read and think. But does that really matter? You can just Google for facts and figures but the human intelligence is determined on recalling our long-term memory. Creativity requires engaging our long-term memories, in order to create new and creative pathways and associations and by reading incessantly on the Internet, we scatter our minds, lessen our focus, and diminish our tendency. In his article “Mind Over Mass Media”
Carr discusses the effects that the Internet has on our minds and the way we think, as well as the way media has changed. Our minds no longer focus. When in conversation with people we are constantly distracted by the technological advances our era has brought. Text messages, emails, pop culture drama has all taken
Internet connectivity is a major problem in developing countries. Broadband penetration is severely limited, and access to useful information is crippled as a result. Where there do exist means to go online, such as ADSL connections or mobile internet, the connection generally suffers from unstable throughput and frequent outages. As a result, instant access to useful information is hampered. In an increasingly knowledge dependent world, to be disconnected from that knowledge poses a serious drawback. Students rely on the internet for academics, sportspeople for improvements to their game and medical professionals are increasingly turning to online portals for reference, and thus the knowledgebases on the internet contribute to making life better. A significant contributor to this gradual integration of the internet as a reference guide into everyday life has been Wikipedia.