The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

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Release : 2011-06-06
Genre : Science
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Book Rating : 368/5 ( reviews)

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains write by Nicholas Carr. This book was released on 2011-06-06. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction: “Nicholas Carr has written a Silent Spring for the literary mind.”—Michael Agger, Slate “Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Now, Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. As he describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind”—from the alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer—Carr interweaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience by such pioneers as Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel. Our brains, the historical and scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. The technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally reroute our neural pathways. Building on the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic—a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. He explains how the printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources. Its ethic is that of the industrialist, an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and consumption—and now the Net is remaking us in its own image. We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection. Part intellectual history, part popular science, and part cultural criticism, The Shallows sparkles with memorable vignettes—Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with a typewriter, Sigmund Freud dissecting the brains of sea creatures, Nathaniel Hawthorne contemplating the thunderous approach of a steam locomotive—even as it plumbs profound questions about the state of our modern psyche. This is a book that will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.

The Shallows

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Release : 2020-09-29
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Book Rating : 587/5 ( reviews)

The Shallows - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Shallows write by Nicholas Carr. This book was released on 2020-09-29. The Shallows available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The 10th-anniversary edition of this landmark investigation into how the Internet is dramatically changing how we think, remember and interact, with a new afterword.

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

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Release : 2020-03-03
Genre : Science
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Book Rating : 003/5 ( reviews)

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains write by Nicholas Carr. This book was released on 2020-03-03. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. New York Times bestseller • Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize “This is a book to shake up the world.” —Ann Patchett Nicholas Carr’s bestseller The Shallows has become a foundational book in one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the internet’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? This 10th-anniversary edition includes a new afterword that brings the story up to date, with a deep examination of the cognitive and behavioral effects of smartphones and social media.

The Glass Cage

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Release : 2015-01-15
Genre : Technology & Engineering
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Book Rating : 089/5 ( reviews)

The Glass Cage - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Glass Cage write by Nicholas Carr. This book was released on 2015-01-15. The Glass Cage available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. In The Glass Cage, Pulitzer Prize nominee and bestselling author Nicholas Carr shows how the most important decisions of our lives are now being made by machines and the radical effect this is having on our ability to learn and solve problems. In May 2009 an Airbus A330 passenger jet equipped with the latest ‘glass cockpit’ controls plummeted 30,000 feet into the Atlantic. The reason for the crash: the autopilot had routinely switched itself off. In fact, automation is everywhere – from the thermostat in our homes and the GPS in our phones to the algorithms of High Frequency Trading and self-driving cars. We now use it to diagnose patients, educate children, evaluate criminal evidence and fight wars. But psychological studies show that we perform best when fully involved in a task, while the principle of automation – that humans are inefficient – is self-fulfilling. The glass cockpit is becoming a glass cage. In this utterly engrossing exposé, bestselling writer Nicholas Carr reveals how automation is affecting our ability to solve problems, forge memories and acquire skills. Rather than rejecting technology, Carr argues that we must urgently rethink its role in our lives, using it to enhance rather than diminish the extraordinary abilities that make us human.

Does It Matter?

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Release : 2004-04-07
Genre : Business & Economics
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Book Rating : 527/5 ( reviews)

Does It Matter? - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Does It Matter? write by Nicholas G. Carr. This book was released on 2004-04-07. Does It Matter? available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Over the last decade, and even since the bursting of the technology bubble, pundits, consultants, and thought leaders have argued that information technology provides the edge necessary for business success. IT expert Nicholas G. Carr offers a radically different view in this eloquent and explosive book. As IT's power and presence have grown, he argues, its strategic relevance has actually decreased. IT has been transformed from a source of advantage into a commoditized "cost of doing business"--with huge implications for business management. Expanding on Carr's seminal Harvard Business Review article that generated a storm of controversy, Does IT Matter? provides a truly compelling--and unsettling--account of IT's changing business role and its leveling influence on competition. Through astute analysis of historical and contemporary examples, Carr shows that the evolution of IT closely parallels that of earlier technologies such as railroads and electric power. He goes on to lay out a new agenda for IT management, stressing cost control and risk management over innovation and investment. And he examines the broader implications for business strategy and organization as well as for the technology industry. A frame-changing statement on one of the most important business phenomena of our time, Does IT Matter? marks a crucial milepost in the debate about IT's future. An acclaimed business writer and thinker, Nicholas G. Carr is a former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review.