The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing Us by Nicholas Carr is a nonfiction book based around the concept of the way in which the internet alters our behaviour. In the prologue it discusses a book called Understanding Media by McLuhan in the 60s that discussed the effect that electronic media has had on humanity. It has caused people that for centuries were isolated reading pages of books to suddenly becoming like a “tribal village.” Carr, 2011) but while most people get bogged down in the content or the message of what each medium entail whether that’s news or music, and he acknowledges those details but he was more interested in how the mediums alter our behaviours when we actually engage with it. “The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, rather they alter the patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.” (Carr,2011) The internet of course is the latest to spur conversation in so many ways such as blog posts, podcasts, video game streaming etc. Then after that the first chapter called ‘Hal and Me’ is where the author is discussing how the internet has had an effect on the way he reads and takes in information, in a kind of positive way so he has access to all the information he needs at a click of a button but at the same time its also altering his ability of concentration and contemplation. In the sense that it takes more effort to stay focused on longer feature articles. I can see how that happens, I too notice people sharing articles and headlines, often without reading them properly, so the longer guardian articles take more effort and concentration. I certainly only read articles that I am really interested in otherwise I just skim most of it to get the main points from the article. Carr goes on though and says that some people he discussed this with have stopped reading books altogether. That I can disagree with, I still read a lot myself but during lockdown it is effecting my concentration on writing—even though I am writing this, it has slowed my fiction writing down ever so slightly. The chapter concludes with Carr describing that by 2007 that he realised the Net had taken a toll on him more than his pc ever had. I think we're all kind of seeing that effect on society with the rise in depression and other mental health isses that seem to have exploded across the world but to the point of a crisis in the first world countries. Carr describes some interesting concepts that I had never heard of in chapter two called ‘neuroplasticity,’ that is to do with the neurological system. Basically, it has been observed that our brains are capable of adapting to new experiences giving us flexibility even in older age. It does come with a downside apparently, as while it gives freedom from genetic determinism, it also imposes a form of determinism on human behaviour. Our neural loops don’t snap back to their former state, instead they remain in their changed state. (Carr, 2011) This Carr then says that it has been linked to all sorts of mental states such as depression and obsession compulsion disorder. And his key point, is that the more a sufferer concentrates on the symptoms, the deeper those symptoms are planted in the neural circuits. The same can apply for addictive drugs. This is all fascinating though and his main point when it comes back to the internet is that if we stop exercising mental skills, we don’t just forget them, the brain space map for those skills is turned over to the skills we use instead. That is quite chilling because it implies that if we are not regularly harnessing skills like concentration, we might actually disappear, and the brain uses that space for something else entirely. The question that sprung to mind almost instantly when thinking about it was, what does that mean for children? Having grown up on the advent of social media I can still remember a time before the age of social media, I was still able to play videogames and enjoyed being able to use that technology. However, I was still able to practice and skills such as concentration and other basic learning skills as well as communication skills and all the rest. But one wonders what the effect of this is on children long term who are growing up practically glued to ipads and tablets. The next chapter discusses children partly at how they interact with drawing as a way of illustrating how children develop with tools—paintings and drawings start very, very basic, and then as they grow up, if they continue to practice that skill becomes better and less abstract however he doesn’t discuss yet the effect the internet has on children. Rather he goes onto discuss the different types of technology; the fighter jets, the microscope, dams, reservoirs, hoovers, and then the last category is the intellectual type—anything that stores information, improves capacity for memory, allows us to take measurements e.g, the abacus, the typewriter, newspaper, and so on. The chapter and the one the follows discusses in great detail the role of technology has played through out human history as well as specific inventions like the clock, and the development of skills that we all take for granted such as writing and historiography whether that’s the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans or the Medieval Chroniclers, all of which is fascinating to me on a history, social but also a Christian perspective. How humanity went from just oral histories to writing down histories, whether that would be the Gospels or other historians like Herodotus but it still doesn’t answer the question what the internet may have on children in terms of skills and development. A few chapters later it gets back on topic, with modern technology and how the internet has revolutionised all the other previous technologies for instance books, and newspapers while good for information could not handle moving pictures or audio, tape recorders and CD’s can only hold a limited amount of information, writing to pen pals across the world could take weeks to months for a response, but with the internet you can do all that and far more. Yet it has not completely erased the previous mediums since a lot of us still listen to the radio despite Spotify and YouTube being so popular, people still do watch TV even though online streaming with Netflix, Amazon and all the others are jaw dropping numbers. Then the author goes onto discuss reading text on a website is different too simply reading a book or newspaper as websites include hyperlinks that are on purpose designed to attract our attention. So, unlike a book, we end up jumping through article to article hardly ever being able to concentrate on it. He also mentions that more people engage with the new medium than the old, which is true—cassettes, original videos, typewriters are no longer common at all. Even some newspapers like the Independent are completely online, while other news started online and are totally digital such as Digital Journal, Huffington Post. When it comes to books and dvds, as well as games, despite the convenience of being digitised, I do prefer physical product especially for the ones I really like. My reasoning is that the physical product can’t be taken away, while the digital can disappear. Two examples of that are Bebo and MSN instant messenger, I remember using both in high school, before the days of Facebook. Now both of those are long forgotten, simply a tiny blurb on the internet graveyard. Same for Stumbleupon another website I was a fan off, but then it changed to Mix, and I don’t like it or interact with it as much as I did in its previous iteration. I really hope that books don’t ever make the full transition, where publishers stop producing books physically—I know that sounds selfish, but I think its really important to have both options, in a free society but also as shown throughout this book that books help us with skills that simply the internet is taking away from us in small doses.
Eventually Carr, returns to the way in which internet is altering our mind, and the thing that really stood out is when he says that the more time we spend sending “bite sized text messages” rather than “composing paragraphs” or the time we spend “hopping across links” rather than “contemplation or reflection”, means that these older intellectual circuits weaken and break apart, and the brain recycles the old circuits for other purposes of work. (Carr, 2011, pp120) He has backed it up with some research, but I am not going into it. It would seem to suggest when it comes for children that it may mean if they are not exercising those skills, they may not be able to develop them entirely. That really is worrying for future generations. There were some positives that the Net triggers other parts of the brain that a book can’t like problem solving, as well as improving skills such as surfing, scanning information, multi-tasking but it comes at the expense of losing skills like concentration, reflection and reading deeply but it also means that we are losing the ability of not just linear reading but even linear thought. The book even by the end never goes back to talking about children at all, and what it might do to their learning development though we can assume that it will certainly have a consequence, though at the moment it is all being played out in real time. It may take ten to twenty more years to see what the long-term effect is, though undoubtedly, we are starting to see ripples with more and more kids having ADHD. We all must live with the internet and make the best of it but at the same time being disciplined with our time on it, being able to step away and being able to reflect. I know for myself as a Christian, I can pull away and use time wisely for reading or prayer or engaging with conversation without it dominating my life too much. Though even then it does distract me at times with writing stories, but it is something to work on.
References:
Carr, N. The Shallows. 1st ed. 2011.
Further reading:
Crystal, D. Language and the Internet. 2nd Ed. Cambridge University Press, 2006 Cowan, N. Working Memory Capacity. Psychology Press. 2005. Innis, H. The Bias of Communication. University of Toronto Press. 1951. Martensen, R. L. The Brain Takes Shape: An Early History. Oxford Uni Press 2004. McLuhan, M. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, critical ed, Gingko 2003. Von Neumann, J. The Computer and the Brain. 2nd Ed. Yale University Press 2000.