Is the Internet fostering stupidity? That's the assertion in Nicholas Carr's new book The Shallows.
Carr says the Internet is actually rewiring our brains, changing our approach to reading, ideas and concentrated work even when we are away from the computer. "Whether I'm online or not, my mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski,'' Carr writes. "What we are experiencing is, in a metaphorical sense, a reversal of the early trajectory of civilization; we are evolving from being cultivators of personal knowledge to being hunters and gatherers in the electronic data forest."
Carr gives us academic and consulting research to support his point. One study which examined the reading habits of six thousand young people who grew up with the Internet found that they did not read a page from left to right, or from top to bottom but instead skipped around, scanning for bits of pertinent information. Another study followed the reading patterns of 232 people wearing a small camera that tracked eye movements. Hardly any of the participants read online content in a methodical way. Most of them skimmed the text quickly, skipping down the page in a pattern that resembled an "F", their eyes glancing at the first two or three lines of text, then dropping down a bit to scan halfway for a few more lines before drifting a little further down the left hand side of the page. He cites one study where links on a piece of text resulted in less comprehension and greater confusion. Or another where subjects watching a CNN broadcast with info-graphics flashed on the screen had more trouble remembering facts from the stories than those who watched a plain version. "We don't see the forest when we search the Web, '' Carr writes. "We don't even see the trees. We see twigs and leaves. As companies like Google and Microsoft perfect search engines for video and audio content, more products are undergoing the fragmentation that already characterizes written works."
In effect what we are doing, he says, is outsourcing memory function and thought to Google and email. The problem is the brain's plasticity. Every time we perform an activity, the neural pathways get reconfigured. The Net is creating massive brain changes. He quotes neuroscientist Michael Merzenich saying that the daily use of computers, smart phones, search engines and other such tools "stimulates brain cell alternation and neurotransmitter release, gradually strengthening new neural pathways in our brains while weakening old ones." Carr cites studies showing that when people search the Net, they exhibit a very different pattern of brain activity than they do when they read a book. Book readers have lot of activity in brain regions associated with language, memory and visual processing. Experienced Net users display activity in regions associated with decision making and problem solving. That explains why deep reading and sustained concentration become difficult online and why many now say they have difficulty reading books. They have become mere decoders of information.
If Carr is right, the Net is taking us back to the primitive times when our cave-dwelling ancestors lived day to day, focused on immediate concerns, like killing the mammoth and keeping the fire going. It was only inventions like the book and printing press, and the map, that allowed us to think in abstract terms.
Carr's criticisms need to be put in context. The Internet has created a revolution in work, society and politics. During the upheaval in Iran last year, protesters were using Twitter to rail against the regime. There are estimates that China has 200 million blogs, despite the censorship.
Still, Carr's writings give us pause to reflect on the unexpected impact the Net might be having on society.
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