the shallows what internet is doing to our brains

Those who are both for and against the internet claim that at its core, this technology in particular teaches its users to think in ways that counter what Carr terms the “linear literary mind,” a mind capable of sustained thought and following the path a plot or argument takes. Whatever innovation it belongs to, from the internet to the papyrus scroll, an ethic essentially compels people to act or think in a particular way. Instead, it’s the way those things are presented that proves so dangerous.Īs internet browsers bounce from site to site, open up countless tabs, and glean information at an increasingly rapid pace, they unknowingly act according to what Carr calls the “intellectual ethic” of the internet. At its core, it’s not the internet’s endless array of YouTube videos or digital libraries full of Wikipedia pages that corrupt its users. His famous phrase, “the medium is the message,” encapsulates his thought and applies to Nicholas Carr’s take on the internet as well. The philosopher Marshall McLuhan falls into the latter camp, and his 1964 work Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man is a venomous portrayal of the ways that media corrodes the mind. Followers of this theory see much to fear in technologies of all sorts, no matter how appealing. Then, you have those who endorse what sociologist Thorstein Veblen calls “technological determinism,” claiming that all inventions-from the phonetic alphabet in 750 BC to the internet in 1989-are inherently formative. On the one hand, you have the “instrumentalists,” or those who think history’s many technological innovations are essentially harmless for their users.

When people consider the overall impact that a particular innovation or technology has within culture, two schools of thought arise.

The shallows what internet is doing to our brains