A Commentary on “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains By Nicholas Carr”
I am a part of the generation who is often rued for our overuse of the internet or looked at with envy given our sheer access to information. Looking inwardly, it’s hard to see what those from previous generations see in us. I am aware that my world looks starkly different from that my parents grew up in but struggle to imagine what it would have been like to not have all the gadgets I do. Author Nicholas Carr gave me an opportunity to see my worldview through a holistic lens as he tackles the difference in how our brains may be functioning as a result of the internet.
He starts his book, “The Shallows” out with the realization that he [Carr] was no longer able to engage with long works of literature with the same amount of attention as he could have prior. To see if this experience is unique, or a shared sentiment, he took to the internet and found others were noting the same feeling. The following quote from his first chapter summarizes his findings rather well; “And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. Whether I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.” He is describing here the idea that he feels that we are no longer able to absorb information in a linear fashion but rather that we prefer to cherry-pick ideas or take in content that best suits our own interests. He poses questions like, “Do you need to feed your mind with constant doses of new information? Do you need or yearn to be connected every hour of the day? How much control do you have over your attention?”.
Take a moment to mentally answer these questions for yourself. If you find that you lean towards yes, yes, and moderate to little control over your attention, we are in the same boat, my friend. It begs the question though, have our brains changed in an unfixable way? Carr shows us in chapters two and three via expert studies that while our brains are constantly creating new neural pathways and connections, the old ones are not painted over or forgotten. Our brains just ‘move forward’ so to speak towards the most recent connections and behaviors we have created. Basically, it would be a little difficult, but yes you can change your brain’s way of processing information. It just takes some training and self-awareness.
To gain some awareness, let’s understand current tech and its historic context. Carr defines technology in four categories:
- Tools of strength, power, dexterity or physical enhancement. Examples: The plow, the darning needle, the fighter jet.
- Tools that improve our senses. Example: The microscope, the amplifier, the Geiger counter.
- Tools that let us reshape nature to our needs. Example: The reservoir, the birth control pill, genetically modified corn.
- Tools we use to expand or support our mental powers: The typewriter, the abacus, the sextant, the clock, the book, newspaper, school, library, computer, and the Internet.
He says that there are two types of people who interact with technology; Determinists (humans are at the mercy of the machines/technology) and Instrumentalists (users are firmly in control of their tools). We are a product of both types of interactions dating back to the development of writing. Carr notes “As our ancestors imbued their minds with the discipline to follow a line of argument of narrative through a succession of printed pages, they became more contemplative, reflective, and imaginative.”
This sounds pretty logical. Reading and writing equals expanding our horizons…easy enough. But the entire issue here is that it seems the medium we are doing this in has changed our ability to think linearly.
Carr makes a point to talk on how our time is spent differently with each medium (please note that this is from 2010). He states, “It’s often assumed that the time we devote to the Net comes out of the time we would otherwise spend watching TV. But statistics suggest otherwise. Most studies of media activity indicate that as Net use has gone up, television viewing has either held steady or increased.” This means that our time shifted to accommodate new mediums, borrowing from time otherwise dedicated to book reading or outdoor activities- something our bodies and brains need.
One can argue that people have found “net-reading” as a replacement but the way it formatted is different. “When the Net absorbs a medium, it recreates that medium in its own image…it injects the medium’s content with hyperlinks, breaks up the content into searchable chunks, and surrounds the content with the content of all the other media it has absorbed. All these changes in the form of the content also change the way we use, experience, and even understand the content.” This explains why we find our brains trying to take in multiple things at once. We have been conditioned to and conformed to interacting with ideas in a haphazard way. Carr argues that not only does the medium change, but the writing provided does as well. This is to accommodate lower attention spans and to include the inevitable distractions the internet can provide.
He spends chapter seven speaking about how the internet captures and redirects our attention in four ways:
- Instant reward and positive reinforcements (example: click on a link and get something new, novel and entertaining).
- Interruptions through instance communications and realtime notifications.
- Instant gratification via social engagement and affirmation suck as likes, retweets, followers, comments.
- Status seeking
“The Net seizes our attention only to scatter it. We focus intensively on the medium itself, on the flickering screen, but we’re distracted by the medium’s rapid-fire delivery of competing messages and stimuli.”…“The need to evaluate links and make related navigational choices, while also processing a multiplicity of fleeting sensory stimuli, requires constant mental coordination and decision making, distracting the brain from the work of interpreting text or other information.” This effects the load of what our mind can work with both in short term and long term. Psychologist Christopher Chablis mentions, “We crave the new even when we know that the new is often more trivial than essential.”
Now that we know that we are hooked on the idea of instant gratification and the desire of new, what can we do? Is there anything else we need to be aware of? Carr talks about how even if we become aware of our own changes in needs and desires, there is still other things at play- including the cognitive psychological tricks companies like Google use to encourage desired user behaviors. He’s talking about algorithms built around the user’s preferences and noted interests.
We know that in the age of apps like Tiktok, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc algorithms are what run the populace. While I love that my apps are showing me content I desire and can learn from, I also have learned to been keenly aware of the echo chambers I find myself in. These algorithms skew humanity in a dangerous direction where it creates room for misinformation and apathy. Our brains have been working to accommodate this at a rapid pace and thus have seen what we’ve discussed in terms of attention and behavior deteriorate at a much faster pace than predicted.
In addition to this, having access to so many programs and tools, we have decreased the importance of knowing how to do basic functions ourselves. “An honest appraisal of any new technology, or of progress in general, requires a sensitivity to what’s lost as well as what’s gained. We shouldn’t allow the glories of technology to blind our inner watchdog to the possibility that we’ve numbed an essential part of our self.” A constant need for input also decreases the time we spend ‘being’. More specifically, I mean we decrease our time spent understanding ourselves and others around us. We also normalize different human conditions. Carr states, “The more distracted we become, the less able we are to experience the subtlest, most distinctively human forms of empathy, compassion, and other emotions.”
Referring back to the question posed earlier, “what can we do about this”? Psychologists and experts all say the same thing- take deliberate time away from technology. Read a book. Go for a run. Talk to people in person. Romatisize being in the moment. And for heaven’s sake, decrease your use of mediums like Tiktok.
