A Few Quotes from Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows:
What the Internet Is Doing To Our Brains
which I found VERY well written, well researched and thought provoking!
(and let me own a disclaimer up front—I realize that this smattering of “stuff” makes me party to what Carr ponders and wonders about in the book, being jazzed by sparks rather than committing to deeper thinking and knowing!)
During the twentieth century, neuroscientists and psychologists also came to more fully appreciate the astounding complexity of the human brain. Inside our skulls, they discovered, are some 100 billion neurons, which take many different shapes and range in length from a few tenths of a millimeter to a few feet. A single neuron typically has many dendrites (though only one axon) and dendrites and axons can have a multitude of branches and synaptic terminals. The average neuron makes about a thousand synaptic connections and some neurons can make a hundred times that number. The thousands of billions of synapses inside our skulls tie our neurons together into a dense mesh of circuits that, in ways that are still to be understood, give rise to what we think, how we feel, and who we are. (p. 20)
The paradox of neuroplasticity, observes Doidge, is that, for all the mental flexibility it grants us, it can end up locking us into ‘rigid behaviors’…..Plastic does not mean elastic, in other words…..the process driving it may be ‘survival of the busiest’. (pp, 24/25)
‘If the experience of modern society shows us anything, observes the political scientist Langdon Winner, ‘it is that technologies are not merely aids to human activity, but also powerful forces acting to reshape that activity and its meaning’.
……Sometimes our toold do what we tell them to. Other times, we adapt ourselves to our tools’ requirements. (p. 47)
Between the intellectual and behavioral guardrails set by our genetic code, the road is wide, and we hold the steering wheel. Through what we do and how we do it—moment by moment, day by day, consciously or unconsciously—we alter the chemical flows in our synapses and change our brains. And when we hand down our habits of thought to our children, through the examples we set, the schooling we provide, and the media we use, we hand down as well the modifications in the structure of our brains. (p. 49)
To read a book was to practice an unnatural process of thought, one that demanded sustained, unbroken attention to a single, static object. It required readers to place themselves at what T.S. Elliot, in Four Quartets, would call “the still point of the turning world.” (p. 64)
But the world of the screen, as we’re already coming to understand, is a very different place from the world of the page. A new intellectual ethic is taking hold. The pathways in our brain are once again being rerouted. (p. 77)
The Net differs from most of the mass media it replaces in an obvious and very important way: it’s bidirectional. We can send messages through the network and receive them as well. (p. 85)
There’s much to be said for what economists call the ‘unbundling’ of content. It provides people with more choices and frees them from unwanted purchases. But it also illustrates and reinforces the changing patterns of media consumption promoted by the Web. As economist Tyler Cowen says, ‘When access (to information) is easy, we tend to favor the short, the sweet and the bitty.’ (p. 94)
Many observers believe it’s only a matter of time before social networking functions are incorporated into digital readers, turning reading into something like a team sport. We’ll chat and pass virtual notes while scanning electronic text. We’ll subscribe to services that automatically update our e-books with comments and revisions added by fellow readers. ‘Soon,’ says Ben Vershbow of the Institute for the Future of the Book…, ‘books will literally have discussions inside of them, both live chats and asynchronous exchanges through comments and social annotation. You will be able to see who else out there is reading that book and be able to open up dialogue with them….(p. 106)
The Net seizes our attention only to scatter it. (p. 118)
The mind of the experienced book reader is a calm mind, not a buzzing one. When it come to firing of our neurons, it’s a mistake to assume that more is better. (p 123)
It’s not only deep thinking that requires a calm, attentive mind. It’s also empathy and compassion. (p. 220)
That’s the essence of Kubrick’s dark prophecy: as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence. (p.224)
Enough! May we continue to be critical consumers of any media and continue to find the connections that really matter to keep us and our brains both wide and DEEP!
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