Book Notes, Summary and Review: The Shallows by Nicholas G. Carr

How will you describe your relationship with the Net?

Nicholas G. Carr's The Shallows is packed with many valuable insights on our relationship with various technologies. In particular, Nicholas explores the nature of the Net and its consequences on our mind.

Structure of Summary

The book review will be organized in the following way:

1. What Is Technology?
2. Why Talk About Intellectual Technologies?
3. Hearing From Both Sides
4. Symptoms of the Net

What Is Technology?

Technology is a manifestation of human will.

Through technology, we can expand our control over our circumstances: nature, time, distance and even one another.

Generally speaking, there're four types of technologies:

1. Technologies that enhances our physical abilities (eg: the plow)
2. Technologies that extend the range or sensitivity of our sensory experience (eg: the microscope)
3. Technologies that overcome biological constraints (eg: the birth pill)
4. Technologies that supports and improves our mental powers (eg: the Net)

To borrow a term used by social anthropologist Jack Goody and the sociologist Daniel Bell, the fourth type of technology is called "intellectual technologies." They are tools which we use to:

• Find and categorize information
• Generate and express ideas
• Advance the frontiers of knowledge
• Take measurements and perform calculations
• Expand the capacity of our memory

Why Talk About Intellectual Technologies?

The discussions in The Shallow are mainly about intellectual technologies. Because every intellectual technology embodies a particular intellectual ethic, a set of views and assumptions about how humans should perceive the world.

An example is the map. The map not only stores and conveys information, it also embodies a particular mode of seeing and thinking. Specifically, the map reduces reality into simpler terms and constructs an analogical space to represent it instead.

When we use a map, we're ultimately looking at the world through the cartographer's eyes. The cartographer's intellectual ethic is subliminally transmitted to us the users, changing our perception of the world.

In the long run, the nature of the technology matters more than the content it carries. The effects of technology don't occur at the level of opinions, they take place on a meta-level where they alter our patterns of perception and shape the process of thought.

In fact, scientific studies have shown why and how this happens: because our brains are plastic. Virtually all of our neural circuits are subject to change. Our brains' plasticity may diminish over time as we grow older, but it never goes away.

Neuroplasticity is a double-edged sword. It may free us from genetic determinism, but it may also impose behavioral determinism on us, locking us into rigid behaviors (aka: our habits).

Always remember, plasticity is different from elasticity. We can't just snap back to our former state, we'll just hold onto our changed state.

This is why we need to be vigilant about the intellectual ethics behind the technologies we use. Else, we'll be bound by the technology we use, rather than liberated by it.

This brings us to the next section: the nature of our relationship with technology.

Hearing From Both Sides

There are two sides to the argument: technological instrumentalism versus technological determinism.

On one end, individuals embrace technological instrumentalism because it's a view we would prefer to be true. We prefer to think that we've absolute control over our technologies, rather than the other way around.

Technological determinism, on the other hand, suggests that our fate is tied to the technologies we use. We're not the ones steering our destinies, it's technology that's charting the trajectory of our lives and of human history.

To completely dismiss either views, however, would be senseless. Because the relationship between ourselves and the technologies we use is symbiotic and bi-directional.

Think about it: when a carpenter wields his hammer, the hammer becomes an extension of himself. At the same time, though, he can only use that hand to do only what a hammer can do. The hand becomes a tool used for pounding and pulling nails.

Thus, we must appreciate how technologies, particularly intellectual technologies, influence our behavior. In turn, then can we react accordingly and manage our relationship with technology in a thoughtful manner.

Symptoms of the Net

1. Fragmented Attention

The Net fragments our attention.

Through its various features, such as hyperlinking and multimedia, the Net is designed in a deliberate manner to maximize your time online. The ultimate aim of the Net is to capture and hold onto your attention for as long as possible.

Under the influence of the Net, our single-minded concentration is now displaced by an attention that is in constant flux.

2. Hamper retention and understanding of subject

To add, the Net dulls our ability to better understand a subject.

Two types of knowledge exist: knowledge on a subject and knowledge on where we can find more information about our subject. The Net grants us instant access to an expansive library of information (the latter). But it fails to help us to better understand a subject for ourselves (the former).

The depth of our intelligence hinges on our ability to transfer information from short-term memory to long-term memory and weave it into conceptual schemas. The passage from our short-term memory to long-term memory, however, forms the bottleneck in our brain.

When we use the Net, it's challenging to translate new information into schemas. Because the Net turns our information faucets to full blast, so we can only transfer scattered drops of information from different sources to our long-term memory. As a result, our understanding of a new subject is shallow and limited.

3. Lesser dependence on your memory

Memorization is often seen as a means of storage, but it's more than that — it's also the first step to synthesizing information.

When we memorize a piece of information, it's shelved into our long-term memory. Once it's in our long-term memory, we can link it to other ideas.

This process of memorizing new information and connecting them to our existing network of knowledge is crucial. Because the connecting is the thinking. What this implies is that: we'll find it easier to learn new ideas and skills in the future.

Wrapping Up

To gain something, you lose something.

This concept of "give and take" forms the crux of this book.

The price we pay to assume the power of intellectual technologies is alienation. In Understanding Media, Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan wrote that our tools end up "numbing" whatever part of our body they "amplify".

No doubt the connectivity and other features of the Net will bring new delights. But note that as we amplify our minds, we also numb our minds. As described earlier in Symptoms of the Net, the Net exerts an extensive and sometimes pernicious influence on our reason, perception, emotions and even memory.

So, is this a trade-off you're willing to partake in?

Think about it.