Technology
by Nicholas Carr
Why can't you finish a book?
Nicholas Carr noticed he could no longer sink into a long book without wanting to click something. As he puts it, he'd gone from scuba diving in a sea of words to skimming the surface on a Jet Ski. So what is the internet doing to our brains?
Hear a sample · read by Laura
Carr's name for tools that extend the mind, like the map, the clock and the book. Each changes how we think as well as what we can do. The clock taught people to carve the day into units. The printed book trained long, quiet attention. The internet trains something else.
Neuroscientists once thought the adult brain was fixed. Carr draws on research showing it keeps rewiring with use. London taxi drivers who learn the city's streets grow a larger rear hippocampus, a region tied to spatial memory. What we practise grows stronger, and what we neglect fades.
To remember something, you move it from working memory, which holds very little, into long-term memory. Carr compares it to filling a bath with a thimble. Online, with links, alerts and tabs all pouring at once, the thimble overflows, and less of what you read stays with you.
Drawing on the reading researcher Maryanne Wolf, Carr describes deep reading, the slow, focused kind a printed book invites. It's where you make connections, draw inferences and form thoughts of your own. He argues the web rewards skimming and scanning, and that we're losing the habit.
Losing focus
Carr noticed he could no longer sink into a long book. His mind kept wanting to skim.
A plastic brain
Your brain rewires itself around what you do often, including how you read.
Tools
Tools shape how we think. Nietzsche felt his typewriter changed the way he wrote.
Books
Printed books trained people to read deeply and follow one long thought.
Links
Every link and alert pulls at your attention, so you understand and remember less.
A story from the book
In 1882, with his eyesight failing, Friedrich Nietzsche bought a typewriter, a Danish writing ball. A friend, the composer Heinrich Köselitz, noticed his prose had grown tighter and terser. Nietzsche agreed, replying that our writing tools take part in forming our thoughts.
Hot take · true or myth?
Once you're an adult, your brain stops changing.
Myth. Carr draws on neuroscience showing that adult brains keep rewiring with use. That's why hours online every day can change the way we think.
One thing to try
Tonight, put your phone in another room and read a printed book for thirty minutes. Make a mark each time you feel the urge to check something. Carr found his concentration came back once he cut his time online, so repeat it tomorrow and see if the marks drop.
Knotd has the key ideas from 250+ non-fiction books, each in a few minutes, in plain words. The Shallows comes with a Hot Take round to make it stick.
Get the whole book on KnotdOpen in the appWhy can't you finish a book? Nicholas Carr noticed he could no longer sink into a long book without wanting to click something. As he puts it, he'd gone from scuba diving in a sea of words to skimming the surface on a Jet Ski. So what is the internet doing to our brains?
Intellectual technologies; The plastic brain; The thimble and the bath; Deep reading.
Tonight, put your phone in another room and read a printed book for thirty minutes. Make a mark each time you feel the urge to check something. Carr found his concentration came back once he cut his time online, so repeat it tomorrow and see if the marks drop.
Yes. Knotd has the key ideas from The Shallows in a few minutes, in plain words, plus a Hot Take round to test them. It's one of 250+ non-fiction books in the app.
