In popular books and articles, information technology writer Carr has worried over the ways that algorithms like those employed by Google are reshaping the ways we think. Nicholas G. Carr More Quotes by Nicholas G. Carr More Quotes From Nicholas G. Carr What the book does as a technology is shield us from distraction. Nicholas G. Carr shields technology book You can take a book to the beach without worrying about sand getting in its works. You can take it to bed without being nervous about it falling to the floor should you nod off. You can spill coffee on it. You can sit on it. You can put it down on a table, open to the page you're reading, and when you pick it up a few days later it will still be exactly as you left it. You never have to be concerned about plugging a book into an outlet or having its battery die. Nicholas G. Carr coffee reading beach What the Net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence, away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence. The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking. Nicholas G. Carr depth loss thinking The Internet, like all intellectual technologies has a trade off. As we train our brains to use it, as we adapt to the environment of the internet, which is an environment of kind of constant immersion and information and constant distractions, interruptions, juggling lots of messages, lots of bits of information. Nicholas G. Carr technology intellectual brain Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski. Nicholas G. Carr scuba-divers guy sea The brain likes to be efficient and so even as its strengthening the pathways you're exercising, it's pulling - it's weakening the connections in other ways between the cells that supported old ways of thinking or working or behaving, or whatever that you're not exercising so much. Nicholas G. Carr cells exercise thinking A lot of your mental energy goes to figuring out where does one word end and the next begin. Nicholas G. Carr next energy doe It's interesting to think about how the book changed us. Nicholas G. Carr book interesting thinking The only thing going on is the progression of words and sentences across page after page and so suddenly we see this immersive kind of very attentive thinking, whether you are paying attention to a story or to an argument, or whatever. And what we know about the brain is the brain adapts to these types of tools. Nicholas G. Carr stories brain thinking One of the fascinating things about early writing on slates, on papyrus, even on early handwritten books, is for instance, there were no space between the words. People just wrote in continuous script. Nicholas G. Carr space writing book All reading was done in the early years out loud, there was no such thing as silent reading because you had to read out loud in order to figure out you know, where was a word ending and where is the word beginning. Nicholas G. Carr reading order years The book, I think, like the map before it, like the clock, created or help create a revolution in the human mind in the way our habits of mind and ultimately the way we use our brains. Nicholas G. Carr brain book thinking I think that the book in some ways is the most interesting from our own present standpoint, particularly when we want to think about the way the internet is changing us. Nicholas G. Carr book interesting thinking I think what the book did in addition to its practical uses, is it gave us a more attentive way of thinking. Nicholas G. Carr book way thinking I think, that after the arrival of the mechanical clock we see an explosion in scientific thinking and scientific discovery. Nicholas G. Carr clock discovery thinking We become, after the arrival of the printing press in general, more attentive more attuned to contemplative ways of thinking. Nicholas G. Carr printing way thinking As soon as you introduce the mechanical clock, you get a radically different view of time. Suddenly, it's not a flow; it's a series of discreet, precisely measurable units, seconds, minutes, hours, and so forth. Nicholas G. Carr different flow views I think we begin to lose the ability to read in the deepest, most interpretive ways because were not kind of calming our mind and just focusing on the argument or the story. Nicholas G. Carr stories mind thinking When somebody's talking to us, they're not putting pauses - carefully putting pauses between words. It all flows together. The problem with that though, it's very hard to read. Nicholas G. Carr flow together talking I think if you look back through the intellectual history of human beings you can trace the way that intellectual technologies influence the way we think. Nicholas G. Carr technology intellectual thinking
