Carr Book

In the book, What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr is a very interesting read.  The book takes an in-depth look at what the use of the internet and other devices like television, and mobile phone has done to our brain.  There are a lot of very interesting points and experiments that are brought up to show that our brain is changing because of the time spent on the internet. 

Chapter 1: Hal and Me

The book starts out with how the author has difficult fully immersing him into a lengthy article because of the internet.  He now is more likely to just skim the articles and get distracted more easily and quickly.  As Carr puts it, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words.  Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski,” (7.)  Even though the internet has made it harder to fully immerse into a book, it has made finding information much easier.  It is interesting to think about how we skim compared to actually reading fully.  When online, I definitely do skim much more. When reading a book, I have no problem getting into book deeply unlike what they were saying happens a lot now. 

Chapter 2: The Vital Paths

            The chapter talks about the brain and the ways it thought it worked.  This quote illustrates how neuroscientists felt at the start of seeing how the brain worked, “Since the brain could not change, human nature, which emerges from it, necessarily fixed and unalterable as well,” (24.)   After a study done, neuroscientists found that the brain is “highly plastic” where it is constantly changing depending on the person’s experience, circumstance and need which never would’ve been thought earlier.  If our brains were unable to grow like originally thought, our world wouldn’t be close to how it is today with all the inventions.  There wouldn’t be much of a reason to try and learn a lot more if we wouldn’t be able to continue growing intellectually. 

Chapter 3: Tools of the Mind

            This chapter is all about how things around us influence our brain.  When talking about how we grow from drawing as a child to an adult, “We progress, in other words, from drawing what we see to drawing what we know,” (40.)  Our brain is constantly getting smarter from us learning.  The next part is how we speak, write, and read affects parts of our brain and how we see certain things in the world.  It is very interesting to me how our brains are different just by the way we write and read.  I wonder how it is for people who are able to read and write in many different languages.  This chapter is very insightful and really shows how important it is to constantly challenge our mind.  This way we continue to gain knowledge and allows our brain to keep evolving. 

Chapter 4: The Deepening Page

            This chapter is all about writing and reading and how it has changed over time.  At first, writing never used spaces between words because that’s how it was when spoken.  In the Middle Ages, writing started to change where there were spaces, and punctuation which made reading much easier and more people began to read.  It also goes on to talking how reading made people smarter and their consciousness changed once fully engulfed in the book.  “The brain of the book reader was more than a literate brain. It was a literary brain,” (65.)  At the end of the 14^th century, paragraphs, chapters, and table of contents were used.  I can’t even imagine trying to read a book without spaces.  It seems like it would be an extremely difficult task and would take forever to finish a book and fully understand what you read.  Just thinking about reading this book without spaces makes me sick to my stomach. 

Chapter 5: A Medium of the Most General Nature

            In this chapter, it talks about the use of electronic devices and the impact it has had.  The Web was able to take books, photos, and drawings and put them onto the computer by using coding.  Then sound processing was put onto computer and then finally videos were able to be uploaded and watched online.  One big thing with the net is that it is, “bidirectional,” (85.)  That means you can send and receive things which never had happened with other mass media.  It goes on to talking about how much we use the internet and amount of time spent daily on it has grown considerably from 2005 to 2009.  After reading about the amount of time we spend on the internet a week, I am definitely in that category and am probably higher because of school work, and being so involved with fantasy sports.  The tools we use keep advancing and making our life much easier than the decade before.  When I’m an old person and I’ll be sitting with my grandkids, I’ll tell them how we had Twitter and Facebook and they will just look at me like what are those. 

Chapter 6: The Very Image of a Book

            This chapter is about how online books are becoming more popular than actual books.  E-books on the Amazon Kindles and other devices makes it easier for readers because of the tools it provides like magnifying class, the ability to read in the dark, and it is also cheaper to buy a book with an Amazon Kindle or device.  Some books are even using videos in the text.  Simon and Schuster make E-novels that have videos called “vooks,” (105.)  With all of that, books will be written differently and presented differently to keep up with the times.  I have never read with an electronic book, but I feel I would like reading an actual book more because it feels more natural to me than it would be to read one online.  I do like the extra tools the online books have to offer though. 

Chapter 7: The Juggler’s Brain

            The chapter starts with this question, “What can science tell us about the actual affects that Internet use is having on our minds work?” (115.)  using the internet has caused us to use cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking and superficial learning.  “When we’re online, we’re often oblivious to everything else going on around us,” (118.)  I think this is very true because we are so involved in what we are trying to find or looking at that it makes it difficult to have a conversation with someone.  Online use is changing our brains because we are creating new paths but losing old ones.  

Chapter 8: The Church of Google

            This chapter is all about Google and how it came to be.  It also talks about how we as the general population has benefited greatly from Google.  It provides an easy way to find whatever one is looking for by just typing it into the search and then finding that information quickly.  I can’t imagine life without Google.  It is crazy to think how society functioned without it. (*sarcasm)  In reality though, it makes searching extremely easy and can makes work much more efficient and web surfing. 

Chapter 9: Search, Memory

              When reading this chapter, a quote caught my attention.  Clive Thompson said, “I’ve almost given up making an effort to remember anything because I can instantly retrieve the information online,” (180.)  This quote is very interesting to think about because you can find anything online these days.  Why try to remember when you can easily type it into Google and find it.  The chapter continues talking about memory and how we CHOOSE what to remember and listen to. 

Chapter 10: A Thing like Me

            In the final chapter, it talks about how we become reliant on the internet and when things aren’t easy to find, we get upset and struggle.  It was suggested to make it more difficult to find material so we aren’t so reliant and actually use our brains. 

            Overall, this book was very interesting and had lots of information that made me think about the use of the internet.  We as a society do rely on the internet heavily and even though it has a lot of pros, we do lose focus of what’s important sometimes because of how we believe the internet is always right.  As we continue to get older, the technology we use will do the same, get outdated and something we never thought possible will take its place.  The internet is a good tool for many things, but we just need to make sure we don’t rely on it too much. 

Reference

Carr, Nicholas. What the Internet is Doing to our Brains. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011. Print.