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Vazquez, Sergio
Honors American Literature

Non-Fiction Independent Reading Project

What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains Through Nicholas Carrs Eyes

Nicholas Carr, an American technology, business, culture writer and alumni from
Harvard, set out to discover how the Internet affects the human brain and its long term effects on
humans in his novel What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains: The Shallows. Carr asserts that
without a doubt the Internet, like any other technology, is reprogramming the human brain given
that, rapidly growing body of brain research indications that even the adult brain was malleable,
or plastic (Carr 21). Every action leaves its mark on the nervous tissues in the brain,and barriers
between neurons change in response to human experiences. The Internet imposes new benefits
for society, however, also carries along with it dangerous consequences. Carrs purpose is to
point out these possible consequences and open the eyes of society to the possible dangers
present in the room in order to educate everyone on how the brain works and help visualize to
the reader what occurs in the human brain when a person uses the Internet. Since the Internet is a
fairly new technology it is not fully known what its effects on the human brain are but most, if
not all studies are showing that the Internet can procure very negative effects in the long run.
Day by day more and more people utilize this new technology and will only continue to operate
it even more as it will become a bigger part of everyones lives. The author attempts to act as a
sort of wake up call or warning to all of humanity that the beauty of the Internet poses its pros
and its cons.
Carr opens up the book by dictating an anecdote from his personal life to help
demonstrate the profound impact of the Internet through his point of view. He propounds that
technology is reprogramming the brain and reshaping the process of thought. It is reshaping this
process of thought by chipping away at the capacity of concentration and deep thought. Before
this new phenomenon arrived Carr states, I used to find it easy to immerse myself in a book or a
lengthy article. My mind would get caught up in the twists of the narrative or the turns of the
argument, and Id spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose (Carr 5). The author
indicates he would read books for hours and hours at end without the slightest form of
distraction, however, over time this went away the more he incorporated the use of Internet into
his life. The more he used the Internet, the harder it was for him to stay focused on a long book
because he found it boring to perform a single task rather than multi-task as he would while
using his laptop or computer. This meant his significant love for books would eventually
diminish over time thanks to the Internet which is what he intended to make clear in this chapter.
He also discovers that without a second thought he would skim through online articles out of
human nature, even if it wasnt his intention to. He became distracted by the suggested articles
the website would put up or notifications he received, so much that he would forget about the
subject at hand that he was supposed to be reading about. Over the years he began to wonder was
this the case for just him or was it happening to more and more people just like him. After years
of coherent research he uncovers the Internet does indeed reprogram the brain with new habits
but it is up to the consumer to mold these into good or bad habits. In a separate chapter of the
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book, Nicholas Carr went in further detail to explain how and why the Net morphes a persons
style of reading and writing, and reconstructs the brain. The truth is that brain cells are constantly
developing and they grow with use. This means every action leaves its impact/mark on the brain
because, our brains are constantly changing in response to our experiences and our behavior
(Carr 31). The reason the brain changes in response to a persons experiences is because
everything a person knows comes from their experiences. A neuroscientist by the name of
Michael Merzenich performed a groundbreaking experiment where he discovered that an
animals neural pathways can rearrange and all neural circuits are subject to change at any given
moment in a persons life. This means there is always room for new habits to form and it is never
too late to become addicted to a new drug or in this case the Internet. So why is Merzenichs
experiment and Carrs research so valuable? The reason is because it proves that the Internet has
more impact than the average Joe may think so. The main reason for this book after all is to
educate people of the real dangers of technology because they lead to habits and the only way to
forget habits is to stop exercising them or replace them with new ones. Another important issue
Carr touched up on in his book was the way the Internet is changing the style of reading for all.
In recent years people are reading newspapers and magazines less and less making the transition
to online outlets for their news and ebooks. This only makes sense since according to economist
Tyler Cowen, When access to information is easy, we tend to favor the short, sweet, and
cheaper (Cowen 94). These online articles, however, contain hyperlinks and ads which is
something books and newspapers dont. These hyperlinks are meant to grab the readers
attention because it is in the companys self-interest for people to be redirected to their website
because they obtain money every time a user clicks on their advertisement. These advertisements
unfortunately distract the user and interfere with the train of thought, something that would never
occur if the person were to read the exact same article on printed newspaper. Since books and
newspapers only comprise of plain text, which can become dull and boring, more and more
people are switching to online outlets since it is more interactive and modern, not knowing of its
consequences. In a nutshell, this is important because the shift from paper to screen will alter the
way everyone navigates their news and the degree of attention and depth people read with. In
addition to online articles, the author touches upon Google in a separate chapter of the text. Carr
claims Google promotes cursory reading (hurried/distracted thinking) and poses neurological
consequences because over time it makes it harder to distinguish relevant from irrelevant
information. A man by the name of Gary Smalls, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, conducted
an experiment where he found that after just five days of using Google a person was able to
rewire their brains. Adding on to his evidence from the previous chapter, Carr affirmed that,
The need to evaluate links and make related navigational choices requires constant mental
coordination and decision making, distracting the brain from the work of interpreting text or
other information (Carr 122). This in turn distracts the brain from shifting into deep thought
because the person will constantly be thinking, Should I click the article to see what foolish new
thing Trump remarked today instead of focusing on what the person is reading. Smalls
experiment proves the Internet acts fast, and not much use is required for it to display profound
impacts on a persons brain in little no time. In addition, Carr attempts to inform the reader that
Google increases the chances of overlooking or misinterpreting information due to the fact that it
bombards the user with millions of articles of information. Two of the final arguments Carr
touched upon in the book is Googles interference with memorization and what Artificial
Intelligence has in store for humanity. By studying changes in the brain after constant Internet
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use, Carr amongst others discovered the brain considers memorization a waste of time because it
becomes reliable on Google and figures the person can just simply Google it at any given time
with just a click. The author then jokes that the Greek goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, has
become a machine. Carr briefly touched upon AI where he mentioned a language processing
computer program from MIT in which where several students communicated with it and felt that
the machine really understood them. A secretary even asked a professor to leave the room
because she was embarrassed by the level of intimacy from the conversation. Nicholas Carr
closed off the book by insinuating that Google is making people lazy to remember facts which
can become a very catastrophic bad habit because then humans will really be dependent on
computers and the dangers AI offers if humanity is careless in its production and distribution.
Various articles not related to Carrs novel have established very similar arguments about
the Internet as well. An online college named Academic Earth published an entry where it
highlighted a comparison between people who read online articles as opposed to people who
remained old school which perceived similar results to Carrs findings. The college utilized a
2011 Science Magazine experiment to establish its point to the intended audience. The
experiment showed that college students remembered less information when they googled
something because they relied on google to store the information instead of storing it in their
brains. The experiment even created an analogy stating that Google has become a persons
external hard drive. This joke is almost similar to the one Carr issued about Mnemosyne being a
machine because both outlets have uncovered the similar results which is that Google is making
people lazy. In addition to Academic Earth, The Huffington Post had published two articles in
the last three years that claim the Internet seizes a consumers attention only to scatter it. It
affirms the Internet has immeasurable power that people aren't aware of because MRI research
shows people can become addicted to it just like any other kind of drug and people do experience
physical/mental withdrawal symptoms when attempting to quit using it. The second of these
articles made an argument almost similar to one of Carrs stating that people are being slowed
down by irrelevant information and that in the direction that humanity is heading, people will
glance at their phones every 10 seconds. The author of this article, Carolyn Gregoire, attested,
Were creatures of habit mentally and physically (Gregoire). It is because of this that each day
that passes peoples habits become worse and harder to quit and just like Carr mentioned, the
only way to end habits is to terminate exercising them. The article closes off by warning
everyone that there has never been a form of technology like a smartphone or the Internet ever
before in the face of this Earth and to take this into consideration.
Nicholas Carr is an American writer who has lived his whole life in this country and all
of the research he gathered came directly from American colleges and universities who studied
American students and adults. This gives off the impression that most of the information and
arguments in this book represent The United States of America if the statistics found came from
American subjects. Technology but specifically the Internet makes up this countrys past as far
back as 1946 when the first computer, the ENIAC, was created in American soil, the people as
only 13% of Americans dont use the Internet according to the Pew Research Center, and the
culture as Americans will only continue to use the Internet more and more to interact with
family, friends,and colleagues. Carr does a good job of incorporating all of these factors from
American life into his book as he includes several anecdotes of his personal experiences with the
phenomenon which is extremely relatable among most people. He explains feeling uneasy of it at
first but once he jumped into the habit of utilizing it on a daily basis he couldnt stop. His
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explanation of his encounterments were easy to comprehend and relatable which aided him in
establishing his clear intentions of the book in the first couple of pages. Throughout the book,
Carr incorporates countless statistics and findings from numerous prestigious universities from
all over the United States to further back up his thesis and establish credibility in his project. The
author eventually employs emotional appeal to show the reader what they have become from
being snatched up by the Internets firm grip. He goes on to state that people have become,
based on the Internet losing our social skills along the way, and are creating for any emotion
that we have to be based on the Internet(Carr 170). This means due to the fact that people are
spending more and more of their time online, they are losing their social interactions with other
people which can cause many to have trouble keeping a conversation going which can
potentially be harmful for the future of this country. In conclusion, Nicholas Carr wrote the book
to warn Americans and the rest of the world of the possible psychological damage that can occur
from the Internet. Technology will undeniably become a bigger part of everyone's lives in
America and a good wake up call like this book can alter the direction this country decides to
take and even serve for the better of all Americans and this country.

Works Cited Page

1) Carr, Nicholas. What The Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. New York: W.W Norton &
Company, Inc. 2010. Print

2) Gregoire, Carolyn. The Internet May Be Changing Your Brain In Ways Youve Never
Imagined. The Huffington Post, October 9, 2015. Online Article

3) Howard, Jacqueline. This Is How The Internet Is Rewiring Your Brain. The Huffington
Post, October 30, 2013. Online Article

4) Anderson, Monica and Perrin, Andrew. 13% of Americans Dont Use The Internet. Who Are
They?. Pew Research Center, September 7, 2016. Online Article