ReviewsUser reviewsUser Review - Flag as inappropriate The author takes a rather bleak view of our future with technology, pointing out the unconscious and possibly sinister changes our brain is undergoing with exposure to novel stimuli. While his arguments are compelling, I feel he does not give enough merit to the advances being made in artificial intelligence, advances that are predicated almost entirely on a philosophy which he tries to invalidate here. User Review - Flag as inappropriate Fantastic User Review - Flag as inappropriate Stayed engaged throughout, made me reflect on what my own intellectual practices are and how I might improve them. User Review - Flag as inappropriate It’s funny that I should rush to the internet to write a review of this book now that I’ve finished it. This is one of the most sobering books I’ve read. In it the author presents the case that the internet is a tool that is making it harder and harder for us to focus, harder for us to engage in contemplative thought, harder to remember things, maybe even harder to experience higher emotions like empathy. He discusses study after study in which the distractions of hyper-linked text have been proven to make it harder for us to focus & remember. As our brains are hyper-stimulated we become excellent at processing information extremely fast, but we lose the ability to retain it or to think deeply about it. The author is concerned that we will lose much of what has been gained over the past 1,000 or so years in culture & thought as we turn increasingly to computers to do everything. He is especially concerned as we turn things “requiring wisdom” over to computers. I think his fears are well founded, I can see it so easily in my own life & mind. As a result of reading this book I have turned from my online (private) blog/journal & am dedicating myself to writing long hand, in that forgotten skill cursive. I’m struggling a little to remember letters – and here is the paradox – so I looked up the strokes on the internet. The author said he moved to the country & deliberately cut himself off from the internet, blogs, RSS, etc – and this helped him complete his work. However, having completed, he says he has gone back to the ‘net, at least some; I think the important thing is to find a good balance & I hope I can do so. Certainly, I need to turn down my connectedness & work on doing things that build my ability to concentrate. User Review - Flag as inappropriate A lot of what Carr says is on target and supports the notion that our culture is quickly becoming less interested in substance and more interested in flash. However, Carr seems to sound as panicky as many people in the past have when addressing new technologies. The truth is that a lot of the literature available prior to the internet, television, and radio was crap. So there is a good chance that many of the people who consumed crap in one medium are just doing so in another. While the folks who were reading the substance will still continue to do so. User Review - Flag as inappropriate A very compelling and timely read. The author makes a great case for why and how technology may be meddling with our brain power. User Review - Flag as inappropriate The question is whether people are losing their minds or society is constructing a new type of one. Tools have sticky cognitive effects on their users and the internet, while figuratively turning on the light for many, may also tend to make it harder to look as deeply as before. In order to write the book, the author attempted to disconnect and find seclusion for a while. He cites how changes of this magnitude have been perceived in the past, e.g. Socrates’ lament that writing destroyed the capacity for individual memory, or how the typewriter changed authors’ styles since they could not dwell on the feeling of writing in longhand. Information is meted out in lots of brief interlinked pieces. Email has become streams. Ads are pervasive. The ten chapters review the mind, book, maps, clocks, tech, computers, and AI, amid the dimension of networking. Rather than point to URLs, the story is told in flashbacks, e.g. how Weizenbaum’s ELIZA could earn the empathic confidence of people even though it was mindless. There are ten chapters and four digressions, the last of which looks at the irony of a book on the disappearance of long-term concentration. Notes and further reading are appended. Much of these are valid issues and worth further study. Whether the realtime flow and exponential increase in data to analyze can be paused often or enough is unknown. More direct types of mind links may not be too far off in the future. User Review - Flag as inappropriate Rich with historical anecdotes and replete with scientific surveys and evidence, "The Shallows" is a book that demands your respect whether you are comfortable giving it or not. And many people won't be. After all, Carr is a bit of a skunk at the cyber-garden party. I mean, how dare he suggest that all is not wine and roses with our glorious new world of instantaneous connectivity, abundant information flows, and cheap (often free) media content! Obviously, most of us want to believe that all adds up to a more well-rounded worldview and greater wisdom about the world around us. Carr is skeptical of those claims and "The Shallows" is his latest effort to poke a hole in the cyber-utopian claims that sometimes pervade discussions about Internet. Although, ultimately, he doesn't quite convinced me that "The Web is a technology of forgetfulness," he has made a powerful case that its effects may not be as salubrious as many of us have assumed. | User ratings
All reviews - 85 5 stars - 27 4 stars - 24 3 stars - 22 2 stars - 3 1 star - 0 Unrated - 9 All reviews - 85 Editorial reviews - 0 User reviews - 8 All reviews - 85 Kirkus - 1 LibraryThing - 76 |