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What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains

I've read Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows.  It is superb and a little frightening in its implications.

Comments

August said…
I would finish reading the article. I hate facebook and don't even have a twitter account. I do know I am different- this is seems to be why Google Reader is going away. There aren't enough people like me, who like a good rambling essay rather than the 140 character barrage.
May 6, 2013 at 1:50 PM
FeelGoodEating said…
If you look at the video and than honestly asses your own behaviour, i think you will find that the "disease" is only grtting worse for most of us.

Eventhough not on facebook, between email texts and skype my phone has slowly but surely taken me hostage.

I feel that im much more distracted than i used to be...
Distracted might be the wrong word though.

Im afraid to read the book... :-)

Marc
May 7, 2013 at 6:36 AM
Patrick said…
As always: „Dosis sola venenum facit“ ("The dose makes the poison") -Paracelsus 1493-1541
May 7, 2013 at 6:40 AM
Greg Swann said…
Cute video, it's a symptom of the syndrome it decries, but how could it be otherwise? Conservatives -- lovers of the past -- always use the latest technology to denounce technology.

Here's the truth: The internet is bringing the Greek Agora to the smallest and least of us. There are a billion new geniuses blossoming in the southern hemisphere. On-line education is putting smelly Professor Elbowpads into a job he can handle, pulling off lattés making change. And our children are growing up immersed in this thing...

Learn to love the future. It's coming either way.
May 7, 2013 at 8:47 AM
Dr. Snyder said…
I think that comment is a bit harsh, though I agree there has been far more good than bad as a result of the dawning age of the internet...especially in medicine where the rapid speed of sharing new research around the globe is speeding us toward new cures.

I think there is deep truth in the losses of depth-analysis that our brains did prior to the bite-size information chunks than many people get online. The key is to remember that the internet is just a tool and can be used for depth-knowledge or bite-size knowledge. It's up to us to create good streams of data and good summaries of data for both types of needs.
May 7, 2013 at 7:23 PM
Greg Swann said…
The hardware and software necessary to produce the book, the video and the attendant PR campaign are more than enough to refute the thesis. The life of the mind has never been deeper, nor its champions more diverse, better dispersed or more numerous. The whole world will change massively in the next twenty years, all driven by the internet and the children who grow up in it. This is a wonder to be admired and celebrated.
May 7, 2013 at 8:02 PM
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