The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2010

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Digression 1

Chapter 3-Digression 2

Chapters 5-6

Chapter 7-Digression 4

Chapter 10-Afterword

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Themes

The Internet’s Impact on Cognition

The subtitle of The Shallows, “What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains,” introduces the focus of the text: the impact of the Internet on cognitive processes. Carr establishes precedent for intellectual technology’s influence on cognition through the examples of cartography, mechanical time keeping, and literacy. According to Carr, the development of the map and the clock had the same kind of transformative effect on cognition that the internet has today: “Every intellectual technology […] embodies an intellectual ethic, a set of assumptions about how the human mind works or should work” (45). New intellectual technologies don’t just serve as aids to thought; they actively change how humans think. Carr chronicles the long history of literacy technology—from cuneiform to typesetting—analyzing the shift from oral culture, with its focus on collective, experiential knowledge, to literary culture, with its focus on individual logic and reasoning. Alongside these shifts in culture are scientifically documented shifts in cognition. Widespread deep reading—uninterrupted reading of long printed text—encouraged widespread deep thinking, expanding people’s capacity for abstract, reflective thought.

Carr argues that as the next evolution in intellectual technology, the Internet has a transformational effect similar to those of the book, clock, and map before it. The Internet “delivers precisely the kind of sensory and cognitive stimuli—repetitive, intensive, interactive, addictive—that have been shown to result in strong and rapid alterations in brain circuits and functions” (116). Carr explores two specific alterations, the impact on attention and the impact on memory, through several studies, each of which demonstrates that people are more distracted when they engage with the Internet, and this distracted state leads to less comprehension and retention. Attention, Carr explains, is the mind deciding what stimuli should be moved from working memory to long-term memory—that is, what information is important and should be processed. The Internet, due to its unpredictable and constant stimuli, overloads working memory and interrupts processing, keeping information from reaching long-term memory and fully incorporating into a person’s psyche.

Carr references anthropologist Pascal Boyer’s claim that “‘collective memory’ […] is more than the ‘representation of distinctive personhood’ that constitutes the self […] it’s also ‘the crux of cultural transmission’” in order to support his ultimate claim that “culture is sustained in our synapses […] outsource memory, and culture withers” (196-97). Ultimately, Carr argues that as the Internet has had a physical impact on attention and memory, it could impact the long-term future of human culture and ethics.

The Nature of Learning and Media in the Digital Era

Carr contrasts the metaphor of the human brain as a computer with the scientific understanding of human memory as a living chemical and physical reaction. First, Carr references contemporary writers and thinkers who describe the Internet as “a replacement for, rather than just a supplement to, personal memory” making “memorization […] ‘a waste of time’” (180-81). Carr explains,

If biological memory functions like a hard drive, storing bits of data in fixed locations and serving them up as inputs to the brain’s calculations, then offloading that storage capacity to the Web is not just possible but […] liberating. It provides us with a much more capacious memory while clearing out space in our brains for invaluable and even ‘more human’ computations (182).

Eric Kandel’s memory research disproves this understanding of human memory as a mere passive storehouse of information, instead suggesting that the memory process is crucial to learning. Kandel’s Aplysia experiments, researching the “physical workings of both short-term and long-term memory” in sea slugs, confirmed that repeated experiences encourage memory consolidation and that memory consolidation involves “not only biochemical changes but anatomical ones” (184-85). These experiments proved that long-term memory—learning—requires a different physical and chemical process than short-term memory; Carr uses this scientific research to explain why the Internet’s effects on memory have implications for human learning. As the Internet interrupts the physical process of memory consolidation, overloading the working memory and keeping information from moving to the long-term memory, the Internet is actively interrupting learning.

Kandel’s research complements the psychological research on Internet reading versus print media reading that Carr references earlier in The Shallows, showing that Internet media not only impedes the processes of memory that are crucial to learning but also introduces distractions that hinder sustained thought. Psychological studies have shown that when people engage with information through print media—linear, deep reading—they not only retain the information but can also problem-solve with the information more effectively than when they read hyperlinked, Internet-based text. Researchers Diana DeStefano and Jo-Anne LeFevre with the Centre for Applied Cognitive Research found that “many features of hypertext resulted in increased cognitive load and thus may have required working memory capacity that exceeded readers’ capabilities” (129). Carr links the psychological research in reading quality to research in long-term memory consolidation to show how using the Internet specifically for learning information can be ineffective and how engaging with the Internet can have a negative impact on the physical processes used in learning even when people continue using traditional print media.

The Psychological and Societal Implications of Technology Dependence

Carr brackets The Shallows with references to Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey, presenting the film’s final scene as a representation of technology dependence eroding human qualities. Beyond simply describing the cognitive effects of Internet use on the human brain, Carr uses The Shallows as a warning against the psychological and societal implications of technology dependence. Early in the text, Carr defines neuroplasticity through descriptions of key research studies, claiming that the brain’s ability to change in response to stimulus suggests that repeated Internet use could fundamentally alter human brain chemistry. Throughout the text, as Carr explains the Internet’s effects on attention, memory, and learning, he returns to neuroplasticity: “[R]outine activities are carried out ever more quickly and efficiently, while unused circuits are pruned away […] plastic does not mean elastic” (34). Carr suggests that as humans adopt computer-like processes—reliance on working memory, prioritizing efficiency—their plastic brains may prune away processes like deep thinking or empathy.

To support his claim, Carr explores two experiments: Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA program from the 1960s and Antonio Damasio’s research on human empathy from the early 2000s. Weizenbaum designed ELIZA to be a basic language processor, yet people who interacted with the program often reported therapeutic effects or assumed a relationship between themselves and the program, even when presented with evidence to the contrary. Damasio’s study revealed that “the more distracted we become, the less able we are to experience the subtlest, most distinctively human forms of empathy, compassion, and other emotions” (221). In response to these experiments, Carr suggests,

It would be rash to jump to the conclusion that the Internet is undermining our moral sense […] it would not be rash to suggest that as the Net reroutes our vital paths and diminishes our capacity for contemplation, it is altering the depth of our emotion as well as our thoughts (221).

Carr argues that Internet use creates cognitive dependence on the technology because the brain prunes the synapses that the technology replaces. He lays out experiments that suggest that some of the replaced synapses may include processes vital to not just learning but also empathy and compassion.