Finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Normal Nonfiction: “Nicholas Carr has written a Silent Spring for the literary thoughts.”―Michael Agger, Slate
“Is Google making us dull?” While Nicholas Carr posed that query, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly quilt tale, he tapped right into a smartly of tension approximately how the Web is converting us. He additionally crystallized some of the vital debates of our time: As we benefit from the {Web|Net}’s bounties, are we sacrificing our skill to learn and suppose deeply?
Now, Carr expands his argument into essentially the most compelling exploration of the Web’s highbrow and cultural results but printed. As he describes how human concept has been formed throughout the centuries through “gear of the thoughts”―from the alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the pc―Carr interweaves an enchanting account of up to date discoveries in neuroscience through such pioneers as Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel. Our brains, the ancient and clinical proof finds, modification in line with our reports. The applied sciences we use to search out, retailer, and proportion data can actually reroute our neural pathways.
Development at the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a resounding case that each and every data generation contains an highbrow ethic―a collection of assumptions concerning the nature of information and intelligence. He explains how the published ebook served to focal point our consideration, selling deep and inventive concept. In stark distinction, the Web encourages the fast, distracted sampling of small bits of data from many assets. Its ethic is that of the industrialist, an ethic of pace and potency, of optimized manufacturing and intake―and now the {Web|Net} is remaking us in its personal symbol. We’re turning into ever more proficient at scanning and browsing, however what We’re dropping is our capability for focus, contemplation, and mirrored image.
Section highbrow historical past, Section fashionable technology, and Section cultural grievance, The Shallows glints with memorable vignettes―Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with a typewriter, Sigmund Freud dissecting the brains of sea creatures, Nathaniel Hawthorne considering the thunderous manner of a steam locomotive―whilst it plumbs profound questions concerning the state of our up to date psyche. This can be a ebook so as to without end regulate the best way we take into consideration media and our minds.
