The Internet Use Of The Internet In The Shallows By Nicholas Carr

Growing up in a generation where technology is at our fingertips, the brain changes its organization and functioning to accommodate the abundance of stimulation forced on it by the modern world. I recognize where Restak’s logic comes from because individuals are so dependent on phones and laptops that it becomes a challenge for people to complete work on their own. People feel as if it is necessary to have an electronic device by their side, tricked into believing multitasking is an acquired skill when in reality the brain is struggling. With the constant use of extra devices, Restak suggests “multitasking”

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

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

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.

In the essay “Multitasking can make you lose … Um … Focus” Alina Tugend exams why multitasking can make you lose focus. Tugend explains what multitasking is in the first section she also explains why it is bad. She then brings in a professor to explain how multitasking works in a scientific way. Alina Tugend then uses case studies to show how multitasking can cause loss of focus and impairment in motor activities. She then shows how multitasking can actually delay your progress on completing projects by constantly switching to different tasks. Tugend then sums it all up by trying to teach us how to better ourselves and to not multitask.

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 “Stop Googling. Let’s Talk.” by Sherry Turkle a Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been studying the psychology of online connectivity for more than 30 years. For the past five years, she has been focusing on topics: What has happened to face‐ to‐face conversation in a world where so many people say they would rather text than talk, families, friendships and romance. She has also studied schools, universities and workplaces. Among this topics she has talked and provided studies on how we have become distant from “who we are.” She reports that we as a society have lost a lot of virtues as a society such as a lack of empathy for one another, solitude, and communication with one another. As the “digital world” continues to grow we as a society continue to grow with it and apart from one another. Sherry also emphasizes that we

Nicholas Carr covers an unprecedented amount of material in his novel, “The Shallows.” He delves into subjects ranging from the history of the book to the business of Google to the psychological concept of neuroplasticity. All of these topics support his main argument: the idea that the internet is destroying our brains. He takes the deterministic approach that we are the tools we use, meaning they shape our brains. According to Carr, the internet negates our memories, deems print books useless, and distracts us from reality. His counterargument comes from the instrumentalist approach; this viewpoint maintains that people stay the same no matter the tools they use. His arguments are both sound and flimsy, current and outdated, and he rants

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

Social Media Throughout the course of humanity, humans have been constantly exploring and adapting to new and creative ideas. In this day and age we have found ourselves in a new technology based generation. Technology is such an epidemic around the world today, causing many to be addicted to the social media aspect. But we have to ask ourselves is social media really worth all our time, energy, and focus?

Personal devices have gradually deviated from helping people to harming them. Although personal devices have assisted individuals in experiencing intellectual growth, they have also caused individuals to experience inefficiency. The author of The Shallows, Nicholas Carr, has prosperously revealed that personal devices can be beneficial: “Research shows that certain cognitive skills are strengthened, sometimes substantially, by our use of computers and the Net.” When they are used properly, personal devices are convenient resources that enhance a person’s knowledge. With this enhanced knowledge, a person is able to receive various kinds of assistance on homework assignments and achieve academic success.

Do you feel more comfortable on the online world or the real and physical world? In the hallways at school, while walking down the street, in parked cars in a parking lot, in the store; everywhere you go, humans have their heads down, scrolling through the online world instead of getting a grasp of the physical world. In recent discussions of technology, a controversial issue has been how the internet affects us as humans. On the one hand, some argue that the internet is the “best thing to ever come alone”. On the other hand, however, others argue that the internet never should have come to life. The best perspective on this issue, is reflected by Nicholas Carr in his book The Shallows when he writes, “With the exception of the alphabets and

We are taken hostage through internet. It channelizes our minds and excludes the important things in life. Internet is a network providing a variety of information and communication facilities. Throughout internet we get distracted, leaving our loved ones behind. It's as if we are in a new world losing precious time.

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?

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