Posted on July 15, 2010.
Closing Keynote Speaker, Nicolas Carr,Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Summary by Iris W. Anderson, Past-chair, Social Science Division
Nicolas Carr says that our brains are changing and that this is great cause for concern. He first attributed it in himself to a mid-life change.Then it got worse. What was it? Well, as he described it, he had been an avid reader of books, all sorts of books, for decades.Then one day he noticed that he couldn’t read books in the same way anymore.His attention span had shortened and he couldn’t remain engrossed in lengthy novels or other written works. Reading books took a lot more effort than previously and he wasn’t enjoying it anymore. So he took a retreat to analyze the problem, do some research and write his new book: The Shallows : What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. It is an in-depth follow-up to an earlier essay that he wrote for Atlantic Monthly entitled, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"
Mostly he learned that multi-tasking online had taken over much of his time and his life: checking email constantly, keeping up with blogs, changing his Facebook status, keeping up with friends on social sites, texting, chatting online, reading newsfeeds, twittering, etc. While it took up most of his time, it also was done in short bursts of attention. The constant connectivity had, he believes, become an addiction. Does this sound familiar to you? Well, Mr. Carr learned that these addictions are actually changing the neurological pathways of our all too human brains, something that science is just beginning to measure. In the process, Mr. Carr believes, we are losing our ability for “deep” thinking, contemplation and analysis, not to mention patience with ourselves and others.
In a recent interview about the book for The New York Times, Mr. Carr summarized his thoughts this way:
When we’re online, we tend to perform the same physical and mental actions over and over again, at a high rate of speed and in a state of perpetual distractedness. The more we go through those motions, the more we train ourselves to be skimmers and scanners and surfers. But the Net provides no opportunity or encouragement for more placid, attentive thought. What we’re losing, through neglect, is our capacity for contemplation, introspection, reflection — all those ways of thinking that require attentiveness and deep concentration.
So what does Mr. Carr recommend we do about this troubling phenomenon that has pretty much taken over our lives? For starters, we can step back, unplug for a while, and think! All of this multitasking is not all bad, of course; we are much better informed, more productive, and technologically adept. Since the world moves only forward and we can’t stop it all we can do is become more aware. And, we can, with effort and practice, slow down.(This is my own conclusion to Mr. Carr’s message.) As a society, we don’t know what the actual brain changes will mean for our futures, but because the changes are measurable in the laboratory, scientists will certainly continue to provide us with facts and data. But that precisely may be Mr. Carr’s most important point, that more information does not necessarily bring true knowledge, that multitasking mostly just touches the surfaces of knowledge, and that wisdom takes time and contemplation and deep thinking.
This post was written by Brandy King, DSOC Chair
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