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Warning: The Internet is making you stupid
Topic Started: Aug 17 2010, 05:58 PM (340 Views)
Jeff
Senior Carp
The Shallows, by N. Carr. I downloaded it on a kindle app. :)

Highly recommended.

http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2010/05/09/the_shallows


http://www.slate.com/id/2255923

[excerpt]

The Internet Diet
Nicholas Carr is a sane guide to how it's changing us.
By Michael Agger

Posted Monday, June 7, 2010, at 10:05 AM ET

In his new book, The Shallows, Nicholas Carr has written a Silent Spring for the literary mind. He begins with a feeling shared by many who have spent the last decade online. "I'm not thinking the way I used to think," Carr tells us. "I feel it most strongly when I'm reading." He relates how he gets fidgety with a long text. Like others, he suspects that the Internet has destroyed his ability to read deeply. "My brain," he writes, "wasn't just drifting. It was hungry. It was demanding to be fed the way the Net fed it."

As Carr embarks, though, he has a firm grip on his brain, admirably subjecting his hunch to scrutiny. He's self-conscious about its Luddite and alarmist spirit and steps back to take the long view. The Internet, he observes, is "best understood as the latest in a long series of tools that have helped mold the human mind." It's similar to other "intellectual technologies" that have reshaped our activities and culture.
By equating the impact of the Internet with the impact of such things as the printing press, Carr is trying to move the whole "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" argument forward. This Web is seismic. It's definitely changing us somehow. Instead of debating whether it's turning us into distractible oafs or a superintelligent collective, let's first look back into history and see how humans have responded to similar transitions. Then, let's see whether the new tools of neuroscience can detect any effects of our current transition.
Edited by Jeff, Aug 17 2010, 06:01 PM.
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Piano*Dad
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Bull-Carp
Quote:
 
It's possible to think deeply while surfing the Net," Carr writes, "but that's not the type of thinking the technology encourages or rewards." Instead, it tends to transform us into "lab rats constantly pressing levers to get tiny pellets of social or intellectual nourishment."


Now, about that next TNCR thread, should I open it up ......
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George K
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Finally
Oh, look. Something shiny!
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Jeff
Senior Carp
Piano*Dad
Aug 17 2010, 06:05 PM
Quote:
 
It's possible to think deeply while surfing the Net," Carr writes, "but that's not the type of thinking the technology encourages or rewards." Instead, it tends to transform us into "lab rats constantly pressing levers to get tiny pellets of social or intellectual nourishment."


Now, about that next TNCR thread, should I open it up ......
I found the book quite perceptive, and I intend to sharply cut my internet "surfing" time.

His point is that the skill of deep absorption into a line of thought or book or topic or story is being lost by spending lots of time short-surfing random data on the net. He has a surprising amount of data to document how web-surfing harms mental ability.
Edited by Jeff, Aug 17 2010, 06:21 PM.
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Piano*Dad
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Bull-Carp
Well, from my own personal experience, I think I might find that argument persuasive. I know that I seem more ..... distractible would be a good word, than in the past. I can't prove that it's the web that is the root of the problem, but that is certainly within the realm of the possible. Yes, I have managed to write a 300 page book and four journal articles in the past couple of years, but my ability to focus for extended periods, which has never been my strong suit, seems even further attenuated over the last few years.
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Jeff
Senior Carp
Piano*Dad
Aug 17 2010, 06:37 PM
but my ability to focus for extended periods
Yes, this is exactly the acquired skill which the internet "untrains" and "unlearns" (according to the author). Lots of specific data and psychological research is cited to back up the personal self-observation.

I saw the book in the store and bought it to read on my flight to France, thinking it was a silly gimmicky throwaway. But it was a great book on the history and impact of technology on human thought processes, from clocks, to a written language, to printed books, to Google and the internet.
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Piano*Dad
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Bull-Carp
Well, you've just made some money for Mr. Carr and Amazon. I ordered it, and "The Big Switch."
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Horace
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HOLY CARP!!!
Quote:
 
Warning: The Internet is making you stupid


What do you mean, "making"?
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
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Jeff
Senior Carp
His concept of the "Taylorization" of knowledge (by Google, among others) is also interesting.
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RosemaryTwo
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HOLY CARP!!!
Many of the posts in this thread are too long for me.

I recommend buying books electronically. Then, when you're reading them, blow the font up real huge-like, so there's only maybe 20 words on a page.

That is less scary that a whole page of nasty little words just waiting for you to think about them.
"Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua
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kluurs
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Fulla-Carp
When you read about scholars at the beginning of the 20th century, they took copious notes and I was amazed to see how thoroughly they would study different versions of a text - specifically thinking of Albert Schweitzer. I was impressed by the palisades of footnotes and thoroughness of his work - and I thought - no photocopying. Now even photocopying seems arcane. I find that over the past few years, I'm reading less books - more periodicals and of course, the net.... I also seem to be spelling like carp.
Edited by kluurs, Aug 18 2010, 07:14 AM.
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Optimistic
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HOLY CARP!!!
The opportunity to have so much information at your every whim within seconds is very tempting to take advantage of. I find myself overwhelmed sometimes by things I want to research, and usually end up reading a little bit of many things instead of focusing well on one. I know for sure that it has affected my ability to concentrate, and probably many other aspects of my thinking and learning processes that I´m not aware of.

For the few months after I got here when I had only occasional access to internet, I really valued the books and new Peace Corps manuals that I had on hand. I had more time to sit and think about the stuff. Now that I have internet again, I´ve quickly fallen back into the habit of looking up information absentmindedly. It really is a hard habit to kill. I thought very hard about not getting internet here, but in the end the benefits of being connected really do outweigh any negative effects.

I think I will also be checking out that book!
PHOTOS

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.
- Mark Twain


We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
-T. S. Eliot
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Horace
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HOLY CARP!!!
On the bright side, a huge chunk of the writing I've done in my life has been for online discussions of one form or another. I doubt writing of any other kind would have rushed in to fill that gap without the internet. So that's one skill it helps you exercise, at least if you use it in certain ways.
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
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Rainman
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Fulla-Carp
Should there be a comma after "you" in the thread title?

As for lack of concentration, I agree.

I start reading one thing and then
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Luke's Dad
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Emperor Pengin
lolkatz r funny.
The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it.
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George K
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Finally
Luke's Dad
Aug 18 2010, 02:13 PM
lolkatz r funny.
ya rly
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Luke's Dad
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Emperor Pengin
Posted Image
The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it.
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