Overview
Nicholas Carr in his book, The Shallows, details his reservations regarding the increasing influence of the internet as the preferred medium of communication and information storage. In the book, he states that the “Net” has become some kind of religious or philosophical movement led by the undisputed online giant, Google (Carr 150). He insists that the very basis of the internet as an information and communication tool is the largely mechanistic approach of the industrial complex. This means that the internet has begun employing the basic industrial tenets of enhancing efficiency given strict objectives and sets of constraints. In short, he contends that the advent of the internet brought with it a change in the general make-up the human psyche.
Analysis
For analytical authors on technology such as Adam Thierer, Carr’s ideas are of prime importance and they carry with them grave implications. Foremost, Thierer agrees with Carr that the evolution of various modes of communication and information storage have brought with them salient changes in the way in which people go about their lives. Carr states that people have tended to become more reliant on the internet as their main source of information (Carr 133). This has also come with the tendency of people to ignore the fact the way in which the internet operates is through interruptions and distractions; this is whereby more and more information is being given to people every time.
The same case applies to Jonah Lehrer. He agrees with Carr’s basic premise that the internet has introduced several key changes in the way people communicate, store and access information. He, in fact, traces this change across time through the advent of various information and communication tools such as books, radios and televisions. According to Lehrer, several of the world’s great thinkers, such as Socrates and Robert Burton, have variously bemoaned the influence of books over people’s minds.
Despite the fact that these two technology writers agree with one part of Carr’s thesis as noted above, they both disagree with his fundamental claims that the internet is essentially making people more intellectually challenged. Carr (192) states that, contrary to the popular utopian view of the internet and the cyber world held by most people, the internet is actually robbing people of their wisdom and stored knowledge. This, according to both Thierer and Lehrer, is erroneous. Thierer contends that Carr does not present a convincing argument for this idea. Similarly, Lehrer refutes this part of Carr’s thesis. Lehrer invokes scientific evidence which indicates that constant use of the internet increases the activity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is part of the forebrain. This simply means that using the internet actually increases attentiveness and makes people smarter, which is antithetical to Carr’s contention to the contrary.
Conclusion
Both authors, Thierer and Lehrer, present similar arguments regarding Carr’s book, The Shallows. They, however, approach these arguments from slightly different angles. They agree that the internet brought with it several key changes within the information and communication sector. They, however, disagree with Carr’s contention that this innovation has also meant a decrease in people’s intellectual capacities. I especially agree with Lehrer as he presents his counterarguments since he basis them on strong scientific evidence.
Works Cited
Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 2011. Print.
Lehrer, Jonah. “Our Cluttered Minds.” Sunday Book Review. The New York Times. 3 June 2010. Web. 18 October 2012.
Thierer, Adam. “Book Review: Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows.” The technology Liberation Front. n.p. 1 June 2010. Web. 18 October 2012.
