A summary of:
Carr, N. (2010). The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains. W.W. Norton & Company: New York.
(Warning: Internet causes massive encephalon damage?)
Having read Carr’s get-go book, Rewiring the World: From Edison to Google, I must say that I am wholly convinced at nowadays that Google is a really sinister company. Not alone produce they aspire to globe domination, but they seem to have got a highly objectionable vision of what their globe would aspect like, if they got their way. They seem to have got no occupation for the environmental impacts of their projects, nor for the ethical implications of them, both evidenced past times their novel baby, the Google Book Search.
More worrying than this is their verbalize disregard for – in addition to massive devaluation of – the human mind. To them, it is an imperfect machine; in addition to I suppose the fact that their technologies may or may non live damaging it alone farther proves to them its demand for augmentation… or replacement.
But I produce aid virtually what’s happening to our minds. And spell y'all are at nowadays branded a Luddite to say so, I yell back the Internet may live pain us. I yell back at that topographic point are 2 kinds of effects this is having on our minds: cognitive impairment (which y'all would have got to weigh against the clear cognitive augmentation is also provides), in addition to impairment to our emotional in addition to psychological wellbeing. I shall convey these i at a time.
Carr argues – in addition to he is non lone inward proposing this – that the Internet is “chipping away my capacity for concentration in addition to contemplation” (7). He continues, “Whether I’m online or not, my heed (6) at nowadays expects to convey inward information the agency the Net distributes it: inward a swiftly moving flow of particles. Once I was a scuba diver inward the ocean of words. Now I nil along the surface similar a guy on a Jet Ski” (7). Or, stated elsewhere: “Our utilization of the Internet involves many paradoxes, but the i that promises to have got the greatest long-term influence over how nosotros yell back is this one: the Net seizes our attending alone to scatter it” (118). He understands this to live a final result of technology’s mightiness over us. He writes that he began to sense that the reckoner “was to a greater extent than than but a uncomplicated tool that did what y'all told it to do. It was a machine that, inward subtle but unmistakable ways, exerted an influence over you. The to a greater extent than I used it, the to a greater extent than it altered the agency I worked” (13), so that for example, “In using the discussion processor, I had acquire something of a discussion processor myself” (13). He also cites the interesting representative of Nietzsche: when he adopted a form of typewriter known every bit a writing ball, his writing style changed perceptibly. A friend of his commented that his “prose had acquire tighter, to a greater extent than telegraphic. There was a novel forcefulness to it, too, every bit though the machine’s mightiness – its ‘iron’ – was, through approximately mysterious metaphysical mechanism, existence transferred into the words it pressed into the page” (Carr’s words, 18).
But the Internet is non a writing tool. It is a thinking tool. As such, it changes the agency nosotros think. Carr muses on his distracted mind, “But my brain, I realized, wasn’t but drifting. It was hungry. It was demanding to live fed the agency the Net fed it – in addition to the to a greater extent than it was fed, the hungrier it became. Even when I was away from my computer, I yearned to banking concern check e-mail, click links, produce approximately Googling. I wanted to live connected. Just every bit Microsoft Word had turned me into a flesh-and-blood discussion processor, the Internet, I sensed, was turning me into something similar a high-speed information processor machine a human HAL” (16). This is an interesting agency of agreement what I have got come upward to telephone telephone information pleonexia. Our insatiable wishing for information is inward a agency determined past times the technology’s wishing for information working through – in addition to using – us.
There is approximately other agency of agreement this phenomenon, in addition to that is to aspect at our neurobiology. Carr spends a groovy bargain of fourth dimension explaining what is called ‘neuroplasticity’, i.e. the mightiness of the encephalon to modify in addition to adapt. By studying simpler nervous systems, similar that of the large ocean slug, biologist Eric Kandel proved how slow it is to alter the brain. Carr writes: Kandel… found that if y'all touching a slug’s gill, fifty-fifty really lightly, the gill volition at nowadays in addition to reflexively recoil. But if y'all touching the gill repeatedly, without causing whatever harm to the animal, the recoiling instinct volition steadily diminish. The slug volition acquire (27) habituated to the touching in addition to acquire to ignore it. By monitoring slugs’ nervous systems, Kandel discovered that ‘this learned modify inward conduct was paralleled past times a progressive weakening of the synaptic connections’ betwixt the sensory neurons that ‘feel’ the touching in addition to the motor neurons that tell the gill to retract. In a slug’s ordinary state, virtually 90 per centum of the sensory neurons inward its gill have got connections to motor neurons. But after its gill is touched but 40 times, alone 10 per centum of the sensory cells keep links to the motor cells. The inquiry ‘showed dramatically,’ Kandel wrote, that ‘synapses tin undergo large in addition to enduring changes inward strength after alone a relatively pocket-sized amount of training” (28).
What’s of import for us to empathize from this is that it is really possible, inward fact really likely, that the Internet is changing the physical construction of our brains. Carr cites approximately other interesting examples.
· “In 2008, Small in addition to 2 of his colleagues carried out the get-go exper-(120)iment that truly showed people’s brains changing inward response to Internet use…. / The most remarkable component subdivision of the experiment came when the tests were repeated vi days later. In the interim, the researches had the novices pass an hr a twenty-four hours online, searching the Net. The novel scans revealed that the expanse inward their prefrontal cortex that had been largely dormant at nowadays showed extensive activity – but similar the activity inward the brains of the veteran surfers. ‘After but 5 days of practice, the exact same neural circuitry inward the front end component subdivision of the encephalon became active inward the Internet-naïve subjects,’ reports Small. ‘Five hours on the Internet, in addition to the naïve subjects had already rewired their brains.’ He goes on to ask, ‘If our brains are so sensitive to but an hr a twenty-four hours of reckoner exposure, what happens when nosotros pass to a greater extent than fourth dimension [online]?’” (121)
· “In 2003, a Dutch clinical psychologist named Christof van Nimwegen began a fascinating study of computer-aided learning that a BBC author would afterward telephone telephone ‘one of the most interesting examinations of electrical flow reckoner utilization in addition to the potential downsides of our increasing reliance on screen-based interaction amongst information systems.’ Van Nimwegen had 2 groups of volunteers piece of work through a tricky logic puzzle on a computer…. One of the groups used software that had been designed to live every bit helpful every bit possible. It offered onscreen assistence during the course of study of solving the puzzle, providing visual cues, for instance, to highlight permitted moves. The other grouping used a bare-bones program, which provided no hints or other guidance (214). / In the early on stages of solving the puzzle, the grouping using the helpful software made right moves to a greater extent than speedily than the other group, every bit would live expected. But every bit the examine proceeded, the proficiency of the members of the grouping using the bare-bones software increased to a greater extent than rapidly. In the end, those using the unhelpful computer programme were able to solve the puzzle to a greater extent than speedily in addition to amongst fewer incorrect moves. They also reached fewer impasses – states inward which no farther moves were possible – than did the people using the helpful software. The findings indicated, every bit van Nimwegen reported, that those using the unhelpful software were improve able to computer programme ahead in addition to plot strategy, spell those using the helpful software tended to rely on uncomplicated case in addition to error. Often, inward fact, those amongst the helpful software were found ‘to aimlessly click around’ every bit they tried to cleft the puzzle. / Eight months after the experiment, van Nimwegen reassembled the groups in addition to had them i time again piece of work on the colored-balls puzzle every bit good every bit a variation on it. He found that the people who had originally used the unhelpful software were able to solve the puzzles nearly twice every bit fast every bit those who had used the helpful software. In approximately other test, he had a dissimilar laid of volunteers utilization ordinary calendar software to schedule a complicated serial of coming together involving overlapping groups of people. Once again, i grouping used helpful software that provided lots of on-screen cues, in addition to approximately other grouping used unhelpful software. The results were the same. The subjects using the unhelpful computer programme ‘solved the problems amongst fewer superfluous moves [and] inward a to a greater extent than straightforward manner,’ in addition to they demonstrated greater ‘plan-based behavior’ in addition to ‘smarter solution paths’” (215).
Notice that the latter of these studies seems to direct contradict Jane McGonigal’s euphoric assessment of the ways inward which gaming helps us solve problems. And the quondam study begs fifty-fifty to a greater extent than urgently, What just are nosotros preparation our brains FOR??? It seems to me that nosotros are preparation ourselves to yell back similar machines think… which is a futile endeavor, given that nosotros volition ever live sub-par machines. Why non develop our brains to yell back similar improve humans? We tin excel at that!
Of course, nosotros can’t deny that the Web helps us tremendously inward doing really specific kinds of thinking. And nosotros seem excited at the prospect of freeing upward approximately existent estate inward our brains. But but every bit nosotros made the fault of thinking that labor-saving devices would gratis upward time, nosotros made the fault of thinking that cognitive tools would gratis upward our brains to produce to a greater extent than exciting things (see p.181 for evidence of this mistake). I was surprised inward detail past times the study past times James Evans at the University of Chicago, who looked at citations inward journals from 1945 to 2005. Carr writes: “He analyzed the citations included inward the articles to reckon if patters of citation, in addition to thence of research, have got changed every bit journals have got shifted from existence printed on newspaper to existence published online. Considering how much easier it is to search digital text than printed text, the mutual supposition has been that making journals available on the Net would significantly broaden the range of scholarly research, leading to a much to a greater extent than various laid of citations. But that’s non at all what Evans discovered. As to a greater extent than journals moved online, scholars truly cited fewer articles than they had before. And every bit old issues of printed journals were digitized in addition to uploaded to the Web, scholars cited to a greater extent than recent articles amongst increasing frequency. A broadening of available information led, every bit Evans described it, to a ‘narrowing of scientific discipline in addition to scholarship’. / In explaining the counterintuitive findings inward a 2008 Science article, Evans noted that automated information-filtering tools, such every bit search engines, tend to serve every bit amplifiers of popularity, speedily establishing in addition to and so continually reinforcing a consensus virtually what information is of import in addition to what isn’t” (217). So but because doing something seems easier (I ofttimes yell back how hard it would live for me to produce a PhD without the Internet), that doesn’t build the production better. Perhaps humans are improve versions of themselves when they have got to scrap toward their goals.
But again, approximately cognitive functions are undeniably improved past times the Web. Carr writes: “While experimental evidence is sparse, it seems alone logical that Web searching in addition to browsing would also strengthen encephalon functions related to for sure kinds of fast-paced employment solving, especially those involving the recognition of patterns inward a welter of data” (139). / “Other studies advise that the form of mental calisthenics nosotros engage inward online may Pb to a pocket-sized expansion inward the capacity of our working memory. That, too, would aid us to acquire to a greater extent than skillful at juggling data. Such inquiry ‘indicates that our brains acquire to swiftly focus attention, analyze information, in addition to almost instantaneously create upward one's heed on a move or no-go decision,’ says Gary Small. He believes that (139) every bit nosotros pass to a greater extent than fourth dimension navigating the vast quantity of information available online, ‘many of us are developing neural circuitry that is customized for rapid in addition to incisive spurts of directed attention’” (Carr, 140). But in addition to so he is quick to position these gains inward perspective, writing, “…it would live a serious fault to aspect narrowly at the Net’s benefits in addition to conclude that the engineering scientific discipline is making us to a greater extent than intelligent. Jordan Grafman, caput of the cognitive neuroscience unit of measurement at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders in addition to Stroke, explains that the constant shifting of our attending when we’re online may build our brains to a greater extent than nimble when it comes to multitasking, but improving our mightiness to multitask truly hampers our mightiness to yell back deeply in addition to creatively” (140). The thing that I must reconcile inward my ain inquiry is this: spell I am on the i mitt bemoaning what the Internet is doing to for sure cognitive functions (such every bit inventiveness in addition to attention), I am also questioning the destination of cognitive augmentation that underlies reckoner engineering scientific discipline inward general. So I am effectively suggesting that nosotros shouldn’t live aiming to improve our cognitive functions. If that’s true, in addition to so produce I have got a right to complain that for sure ones seem to live getting weaker? I yell back I do, actually. It’s the old Hippocratic Oath: Do no harm.
There are 3 other points to build virtually neuroplasticity:
1) It would explicate why things that are anathema to us initially come upward to experience similar human nature. We literally change. In social psychology terms, this is known every bit the foot-in-the-door phenomenon; i.e. every bit nosotros build pocket-sized concessions, nosotros allow to a greater extent than in addition to to a greater extent than unwanted things through the door. So spell nosotros may cringe initially at the sentiment of ubiquitous computers, they acquire acceptable through our repeated exposure to them, every bit our brains modify in addition to come upward to react less in addition to less to this unwanted stimuli (like the ocean slug no longer recoiling at touch).
2) As Carr says, “What we’re not doing when we’re online also has neurological consequences. Just every bit neurons that burn together wire together, neurons that don’t burn together don’t wire together. As the fourth dimension nosotros pass scanning Web pages crowds out the fourth dimension nosotros pass reading books, every bit the fourth dimension nosotros pass exchanging bite-sized text messages crowds out the fourth dimension nosotros pass composing sentences in addition to paragraphs, every bit the fourth dimension nosotros pass hopping across links crowds out the fourth dimension nosotros devote to tranquility reflection in addition to contemplation, the circuits that back upward those old intellectual functions in addition to pursuits weaken in addition to get to suspension apart. The encephalon recycles the disused neurons in addition to synapses for other, to a greater extent than pressing work. We gain novel skills in addition to perspectives but lose old ones” (120).
3) Given the changeability of our brains, it is non far fetched to advise that nosotros are damaging our wellbeing through our exposure to the Internet, potentially hardwiring inward anxiety, addiction, apathy, etc.. This is dissimilar from proverb that engineering scientific discipline increases our anxiety (etc.). This is proverb that engineering scientific discipline is encoding anxiety (etc.) into our brains.
So let’s acquire to the wellbeing implications of the Internet.
We are increasingly addicted to information. E.g., “The near-continuous flow of novel information pumped out past times the Web also plays to our natural vogue to ‘vastly overvalue what happens to us right now,’ every bit Union College psychologist Christopher Chabris explains. We crave the novel fifty-fifty when nosotros know that ‘the novel is to a greater extent than ofttimes piffling than essential’” (134). This is similar to Postman’s declaration virtually the information-action ratio, that nosotros experience increasingly disempowered to produce anything amongst or virtually the information nosotros receive. We are, similar all goodness addicts, consuming compulsively; in addition to nosotros demand to a greater extent than in addition to to a greater extent than information to satisfy our cravings, ultimately pregnant that nosotros consume, but nosotros are doing so alone to experience ‘normal’. In other words, it is non making us happy; it is non satisfying our human needs.
Secondly, nosotros are overloaded amongst information, which every bit nosotros know from studies affects our mightiness to live compassionate, or to reply to information inward emotionally appropriate ways. Carr writes, “Information overload has acquire a permanent affliction, in addition to our attempts to cure it but acquire into worse. The alone agency to acquire by is to increment our scanning in addition to our skimming, to rely fifty-fifty to a greater extent than heavily on the wonderfully responsive machines that are the source of the problem. Today, to a greater extent than information is ‘available to us than ever before,’ writes Levy, ‘but at that topographic point is less fourth dimension to build utilization of it – in addition to specifically to build utilization of it amongst whatever depth of reflection.’ Tomorrow, the province of affairs volition live worse still” (170).
Thirdly, engineering scientific discipline is making it to a greater extent than in addition to to a greater extent than hard to live contemplative. And it is really probable that humans demand these opportunities to experience fulfilled: “When carried to the realm of the intellect, the industrial ideal of efficiency poses, every bit Hawthorne understood, a potentially individual threat to the pastoral ideal of meditative thought. That doesn’t hateful that promoting the rapid regain in addition to retrieval of information is bad. It’s not. The evolution of a well-rounded heed requires both an mightiness to notice in addition to speedily parse a broad make of information in addition to a capacity for open-ended reflection. There needs to live fourth dimension for efficient information collection in addition to fourth dimension for inefficient contemplation, fourth dimension to operate the machine in addition to fourth dimension to sit down idly inward the garden. We demand to piece of work inward Google’s ‘world of numbers,’ but nosotros also demand to live able to retreat to Sleepy Hollow. The employment today is that we’re losing our mightiness to smasher a residue betwixt those 2 really dissimilar states of mind. Mentally, we’re inward perpetual motion” (168).
This truly does audio similar I’m but a Luddite. But I don’t yell back it’s crazy to weigh the downsides of engineering scientific discipline versus their supposed benefits. Otherwise, how tin nosotros give our informed consent to the objects inward our world? And without this consent, of course of study these technologies volition appear to us every bit techno-demons, i.e. every bit forces that human face upward us that are beyond our control. But they are inward our control! And the fundamental is to get past times existence questioning. This is no slow task, especially since it is really hard to appreciate the effects engineering scientific discipline are having on us spell nosotros are existence affected past times them (it’s easier for an outsider to study this). And at that topographic point is an chemical component of denial every bit well, given the Sisyphean challenge of trying to halt the continued proliferation of technologies in addition to the growing mightiness they have got over us (for example, nosotros can’t halt the Google Book Search, no affair how damaging this may be). But I yell back if nosotros human face upward to the hard truths, nosotros tin start to improve our situation, in addition to we’ll live improve off.
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