The Shallows

The Shallows, What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

by Nicholas Carr

Reviewed by Janice Riley

Dave my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. Author Nicholas Carr conjures the computer HAL from Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), to give us a sense of what he feels is happening to his own brain. He’s worried about it and wonders what exactly is going on. So begins his search for an answer and an exhaustive, thought-provoking, brilliantly executed investigation it is. Conceived as a cover story for Atlantic in 2008, with the provocative title, Is Google Making Us Stupid? Carr expanded the subject of that article here into The Shallows, What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (2010), a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize.

The Shallows is a fascinating book and a significant contribution to the popular subject of neuroscience. Carr’s research is impressive. His writing inform us, in a methodical and wryly written style, of remarkable findings on the “plasticity” of the brain and what effect the internet might be having on it. Plasticity refers to a brain’s malleability, in which new “circuits” are created throughout a person’s entire lifetime, sometimes even replacing those that have been damaged. This is contrary to earlier science, which held that brain development ended in young adulthood, followed by deterioration. The brain is more powerful than we have ever known and still as mysterious. It has been said that the mind is what the brain does. To make use of its potential, Carr doesn’t suggest we simply do word puzzles, basically, he urges us to read books. Our increasing dependency on technologies, a fairly recent alliance of the human and artificial, may be re-wiring our brains already, he cautions, diverting deep, penetrating thought, a hallmark of the mind, into the rapid-fire, exhilarating shallows of all that is superficial and easily manipulated.

Along the path of research Carr beckons us to follow, we explore relevant aspects of the history of civilization: we hear from Plato, Hawthorne, Nietzsche, Whitman and T.S.Eliot; we learn about Gutenberg’s printing press and how Frederick Winslow Taylor’s paradigm of scientific management revolutionized industry; we read about experiments on slugs and how their adaptability has relevancy to our own, why shifting I.Q. scores are unreliable indicators of intellectual gains, and that a charismatic software program named ELIZA created a stir at MIT, with alarming results nationwide. Throughout, though, our place is never lost. It is the presence and accelerated evolution of the computer and world wide web that we are pursuing, link by link. Carr never misses an opportunity to make insightful connections. Having the world at our fingertips can be a great equalizer, as books once were, Carr suggests, but we should stay alert to the potential danger in this enthrallment. Will “deep readers” become consigned to the past as “eccentric practitioners,” he worries, “of an increasingly arcane hobby?” And further, what will the evolutionary consequences be for humankind?

Maryanne Wolf explored a similar theme in her recent book, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of Reading (2007), and The Shallows might be read as a companion piece that continues her exploration. To speculate about the future, especially a partnership with artificial intelligence, may be more the province of science fiction writers like Arthur C. Clarke. However, as neuroscientists continue to map our changing brains, Carr’s book may be remembered for the cautionary note it sounds today. In the meantime, the reader can imagine that Carr’s addled, unfocused brain, adrift in the shallows, breathed a sigh of relief as it plumbed forgotten depths, totally immersing itself in a subject, its neurons firing off in new directions, making connections previously skimmed over. He reminds us that Walt Whitman reflected in Leaves of Grass, more than a century and a half ago, “I project the history of the future.” Whitman spent his lifetime writing and re-writing that book, its subject his very life, as, perhaps, the intersection of neuroscience, culture, and technology may be for Carr, once again to our benefit.

Nicholas Carr holds an MBA from Harvard and has written extensively on the interface between business and culture.