The Shallows — What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains — by Nicholas Carr
When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning
The Net’s cacophony of stimuli short-circuits both conscious and unconscious thought, preventing our minds from thinking either deeply or creatively
The near-continuous stream of new information pumped out by the Web also plays to our natural tendency to ‘vastly overvalue what happens to us right now
The offloading of memory to external data banks … threatens the depth and distinctiveness of the culture we all share
To remain vital, culture must be renewed in the minds of the members of every generation. Outsource memory, and culture withers
Every tool imposes limitations even as it opens possibilities. The more we use it, the more we mold ourselves to its form and function
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
We may be experiencing a slow erosion of our humanness and out humanity. “It’s not only deep thinking that requires a calm, attentive mind. It’s also empathy and compassion.”
The Net is, by design, an interruption system, a machine geared for dividing attention. Frequent interruptions scatter our thoughts, weaken our memory, and make us tense and anxious
The Net fragments content and disrupts our concentration. “We are plunged into an ecosystem of interruption technologies.”
The map advanced the evolution of abstract thinking throughout society. And what the map did for space, the mechanical clock did for time.
The reminder of time became the prod and key to personal achievement and productivity. The mechanical clock changed the way we saw ourselves and the way we thought
Sometimes our tools do what we tell them to. Other times, we adapt ourselves to our tools’ requirements
All technologies through history that have influenced how we use information and engage our senses have shaped the physical structure and workings of the human mind. Through what we do and how we do it — moment by moment, day by day, consciously or unconsciously — we alter the chemical flows in our synapses and change our brains.
