A summary of:
Carr, N. (2010). The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains. W.W. Norton & Company: New York.
(Warning: Internet causes massive brain damage?)
Having read Carr’s first book, Rewiring the World: From Edison to Google, I must say that I am wholly convinced now that Google is a very sinister company. Not only do they aspire to world domination, but they seem to have a highly objectionable vision of what their world would look like, if they got their way. They seem to have no concern for the environmental impacts of their projects, nor for the ethical implications of them, both evidenced by their new baby, the Google Book Search.
More worrying than this is their utter disregard for – and massive devaluation of – the human mind. To them, it is an imperfect machine; and I suppose the fact that their technologies may or may not be damaging it only further proves to them its need for augmentation… or replacement.
But I do care about what’s happening to our minds. And while you are immediately branded a Luddite to say so, I think the Internet may be hurting us. I think there are two kinds of effects this is having on our minds: cognitive impairment (which you would have to weigh against the clear cognitive augmentation is also provides), and damage to our emotional and psychological wellbeing. I shall take these one at a time.
Carr argues – and he is not alone in proposing this – that the Internet is “chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation” (7). He continues, “Whether I’m online or not, my mind (6) 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” (7). Or, stated elsewhere: “Our use of the Internet involves many paradoxes, but the one that promises to have the greatest long-term influence over how we think is this one: the Net seizes our attention only to scatter it” (118). He understands this to be a result of technology’s power over us. He writes that he began to sense that the computer “was more than just a simple tool that did what you told it to do. It was a machine that, in subtle but unmistakable ways, exerted an influence over you. The more I used it, the more it altered the way I worked” (13), so that for example, “In using the word processor, I had become something of a word processor myself” (13). He also cites the interesting case of Nietzsche: when he adopted a kind of typewriter known as a writing ball, his writing style changed perceptibly. A friend of his commented that his “prose had become tighter, more telegraphic. There was a new forcefulness to it, too, as though the machine’s power – its ‘iron’ – was, through some mysterious metaphysical mechanism, being transferred into the words it pressed into the page” (Carr’s words, 18).
But the Internet is not a writing tool. It is a thinking tool. As such, it changes the way we think. Carr muses on his distracted mind, “But my brain, I realized, wasn’t just drifting. It was hungry. It was demanding to be fed the way the Net fed it – and the more it was fed, the hungrier it became. Even when I was away from my computer, I yearned to check e-mail, click links, do some Googling. I wanted to be connected. Just as Microsoft Word had turned me into a flesh-and-blood word processor, the Internet, I sensed, was turning me into something like a high-speed data processor machine a human HAL” (16). This is an interesting way of understanding what I have come to call information pleonexia. Our insatiable desire for information is in a way determined by the technology’s desire for information working through – and using – us.
There is another way of understanding this phenomenon, and that is to look at our neurobiology. Carr spends a great deal of time explaining what is called ‘neuroplasticity’, i.e. the ability of the brain to change and adapt. By studying simpler nervous systems, like that of the large sea slug, biologist Eric Kandel proved how easy it is to alter the brain. Carr writes: Kandel… found that if you touch a slug’s gill, even very lightly, the gill will immediately and reflexively recoil. But if you touch the gill repeatedly, without causing any harm to the animal, the recoiling instinct will steadily diminish. The slug will become (27) habituated to the touch and learn to ignore it. By monitoring slugs’ nervous systems, Kandel discovered that ‘this learned change in behavior was paralleled by a progressive weakening of the synaptic connections’ between the sensory neurons that ‘feel’ the touch and the motor neurons that tell the gill to retract. In a slug’s ordinary state, about ninety percent of the sensory neurons in its gill have connections to motor neurons. But after its gill is touched just forty times, only ten percent of the sensory cells maintain links to the motor cells. The research ‘showed dramatically,’ Kandel wrote, that ‘synapses can undergo large and enduring changes in strength after only a relatively small amount of training” (28).
What’s important for us to understand from this is that it is very possible, in fact very likely, that the Internet is changing the physical structure of our brains. Carr cites some other interesting examples.
· “In 2008, Small and two of his colleagues carried out the first exper-(120)iment that actually showed people’s brains changing in response to Internet use…. / The most remarkable part of the experiment came when the tests were repeated six days later. In the interim, the researches had the novices spend an hour a day online, searching the Net. The new scans revealed that the area in their prefrontal cortex that had been largely dormant now showed extensive activity – just like the activity in the brains of the veteran surfers. ‘After just five days of practice, the exact same neural circuitry in the front part of the brain became active in the Internet-naïve subjects,’ reports Small. ‘Five hours on the Internet, and the naïve subjects had already rewired their brains.’ He goes on to ask, ‘If our brains are so sensitive to just an hour a day of computer exposure, what happens when we spend more time [online]?’” (121)
· “In 2003, a Dutch clinical psychologist named Christof van Nimwegen began a fascinating study of computer-aided learning that a BBC writer would later call ‘one of the most interesting examinations of current computer use and the potential downsides of our increasing reliance on screen-based interaction with information systems.’ Van Nimwegen had two groups of volunteers work through a tricky logic puzzle on a computer…. One of the groups used software that had been designed to be as helpful as possible. It offered onscreen assistence during the course of solving the puzzle, providing visual cues, for instance, to highlight permitted moves. The other group used a bare-bones program, which provided no hints or other guidance (214). / In the early stages of solving the puzzle, the group using the helpful software made correct moves more quickly than the other group, as would be expected. But as the test proceeded, the proficiency of the members of the group using the bare-bones software increased more rapidly. In the end, those using the unhelpful program were able to solve the puzzle more quickly and with fewer wrong moves. They also reached fewer impasses – states in which no further moves were possible – than did the people using the helpful software. The findings indicated, as van Nimwegen reported, that those using the unhelpful software were better able to plan ahead and plot strategy, while those using the helpful software tended to rely on simple trial and error. Often, in fact, those with the helpful software were found ‘to aimlessly click around’ as they tried to crack the puzzle. / Eight months after the experiment, van Nimwegen reassembled the groups and had them again work on the colored-balls puzzle as well as a variation on it. He found that the people who had originally used the unhelpful software were able to solve the puzzles nearly twice as fast as those who had used the helpful software. In another test, he had a different set of volunteers use ordinary calendar software to schedule a complicated series of meeting involving overlapping groups of people. Once again, one group used helpful software that provided lots of on-screen cues, and another group used unhelpful software. The results were the same. The subjects using the unhelpful program ‘solved the problems with fewer superfluous moves [and] in a more straightforward manner,’ and they demonstrated greater ‘plan-based behavior’ and ‘smarter solution paths’” (215).
Notice that the latter of these studies seems to directly contradict Jane McGonigal’s euphoric assessment of the ways in which gaming helps us solve problems. And the former study begs even more urgently, What exactly are we training our brains FOR??? It seems to me that we are training ourselves to think like machines think… which is a futile endeavor, given that we will always be sub-par machines. Why not train our brains to think like better humans? We can excel at that!
Of course, we can’t deny that the Web helps us tremendously in doing very specific kinds of thinking. And we seem excited at the prospect of freeing up some real estate in our brains. But just as we made the mistake of thinking that labor-saving devices would free up time, we made the mistake of thinking that cognitive tools would free up our brains to do more exciting things (see p.181 for evidence of this mistake). I was surprised in particular by the study by James Evans at the University of Chicago, who looked at citations in journals from 1945 to 2005. Carr writes: “He analyzed the citations included in the articles to see if patters of citation, and hence of research, have changed as journals have shifted from being printed on paper to being published online. Considering how much easier it is to search digital text than printed text, the common assumption has been that making journals available on the Net would significantly broaden the scope of scholarly research, leading to a much more diverse set of citations. But that’s not at all what Evans discovered. As more journals moved online, scholars actually cited fewer articles than they had before. And as old issues of printed journals were digitized and uploaded to the Web, scholars cited more recent articles with increasing frequency. A broadening of available information led, as Evans described it, to a ‘narrowing of science and scholarship’. / In explaining the counterintuitive findings in a 2008 Science article, Evans noted that automated information-filtering tools, such as search engines, tend to serve as amplifiers of popularity, quickly establishing and then continually reinforcing a consensus about what information is important and what isn’t” (217). So just because doing something seems easier (I often think how difficult it would be for me to do a PhD without the Internet), that doesn’t make the product better. Perhaps humans are better versions of themselves when they have to struggle toward their goals.
But again, some cognitive functions are undeniably improved by the Web. Carr writes: “While experimental evidence is sparse, it seems only logical that Web searching and browsing would also strengthen brain functions related to certain kinds of fast-paced problem solving, particularly those involving the recognition of patterns in a welter of data” (139). / “Other studies suggest that the kind of mental calisthenics we engage in online may lead to a small expansion in the capacity of our working memory. That, too, would help us to become more adept at juggling data. Such research ‘indicates that our brains learn to swiftly focus attention, analyze information, and almost instantaneously decide on a go or no-go decision,’ says Gary Small. He believes that (139) as we spend more time navigating the vast quantity of information available online, ‘many of us are developing neural circuitry that is customized for rapid and incisive spurts of directed attention’” (Carr, 140). But then he is quick to put these gains in perspective, writing, “…it would be a serious mistake to look narrowly at the Net’s benefits and conclude that the technology is making us more intelligent. Jordan Grafman, head of the cognitive neuroscience unit at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, explains that the constant shifting of our attention when we’re online may make our brains more nimble when it comes to multitasking, but improving our ability to multitask actually hampers our ability to think deeply and creatively” (140). The thing that I must reconcile in my own research is this: while I am on the one hand bemoaning what the Internet is doing to certain cognitive functions (such as creativity and attention), I am also questioning the goal of cognitive augmentation that underlies computer technology in general. So I am effectively suggesting that we shouldn’t be aiming to improve our cognitive functions. If that’s true, then do I have a right to complain that certain ones seem to be getting weaker? I think I do, actually. It’s the old Hippocratic Oath: Do no harm.
There are three other points to make about neuroplasticity:
1) It would explain why things that are anathema to us initially come to feel like human nature. We literally change. In social psychology terms, this is known as the foot-in-the-door phenomenon; i.e. as we make small concessions, we allow more and more unwanted things through the door. So while we may cringe initially at the thought of ubiquitous computers, they become acceptable through our repeated exposure to them, as our brains change and come to react less and less to this unwanted stimuli (like the sea slug no longer recoiling at touch).
2) As Carr says, “What we’re not doing when we’re online also has neurological consequences. Just as neurons that fire together wire together, neurons that don’t fire together don’t wire together. As the time we spend scanning Web pages crowds out the time we spend reading books, as the time we spend exchanging bite-sized text messages crowds out the time we spend composing sentences and paragraphs, as the time we spend hopping across links crowds out the time we devote to quiet reflection and contemplation, the circuits that support those old intellectual functions and pursuits weaken and begin to break apart. The brain recycles the disused neurons and synapses for other, more pressing work. We gain new skills and perspectives but lose old ones” (120).
3) Given the changeability of our brains, it is not far fetched to suggest that we are damaging our wellbeing through our exposure to the Internet, potentially hardwiring in anxiety, addiction, apathy, etc.. This is different from saying that technology increases our anxiety (etc.). This is saying that technology is encoding anxiety (etc.) into our brains.
So let’s get to the wellbeing implications of the Internet.
We are increasingly addicted to information. E.g., “The near-continuous stream of new information pumped out by the Web also plays to our natural tendency to ‘vastly overvalue what happens to us right now,’ as Union College psychologist Christopher Chabris explains. We crave the new even when we know that ‘the new is more often trivial than essential’” (134). This is similar to Postman’s argument about the information-action ratio, that we feel increasingly disempowered to do anything with or about the information we receive. We are, like all good addicts, consuming compulsively; and we need more and more information to satisfy our cravings, ultimately meaning that we consume, but we are doing so only to feel ‘normal’. In other words, it is not making us happy; it is not satisfying our human needs.
Secondly, we are overloaded with information, which as we know from studies affects our ability to be compassionate, or to respond to information in emotionally appropriate ways. Carr writes, “Information overload has become a permanent affliction, and our attempts to cure it just make it worse. The only way to cope is to increase our scanning and our skimming, to rely even more heavily on the wonderfully responsive machines that are the source of the problem. Today, more information is ‘available to us than ever before,’ writes Levy, ‘but there is less time to make use of it – and specifically to make use of it with any depth of reflection.’ Tomorrow, the situation will be worse still” (170).
Thirdly, technology is making it more and more difficult to be contemplative. And it is very likely that humans need these opportunities to feel fulfilled: “When carried to the realm of the intellect, the industrial ideal of efficiency poses, as Hawthorne understood, a potentially mortal threat to the pastoral ideal of meditative thought. That doesn’t mean that promoting the rapid discovery and retrieval of information is bad. It’s not. The development of a well-rounded mind requires both an ability to find and quickly parse a wide range of information and a capacity for open-ended reflection. There needs to be time for efficient data collection and time for inefficient contemplation, time to operate the machine and time to sit idly in the garden. We need to work in Google’s ‘world of numbers,’ but we also need to be able to retreat to Sleepy Hollow. The problem today is that we’re losing our ability to strike a balance between those two very different states of mind. Mentally, we’re in perpetual motion” (168).
This really does sound like I’m just a Luddite. But I don’t think it’s crazy to weigh the downsides of technology versus their supposed benefits. Otherwise, how can we give our informed consent to the objects in our world? And without this consent, of course these technologies will appear to us as techno-demons, i.e. as forces that confront us that are beyond our control. But they are in our control! And the key is to begin by being questioning. This is no easy task, especially since it is very difficult to appreciate the effects technology are having on us while we are being affected by them (it’s easier for an outsider to study this). And there is an element of denial as well, given the Sisyphean challenge of trying to stop the continued proliferation of technologies and the growing power they have over us (for example, we can’t stop the Google Book Search, no matter how damaging this may be). But I think if we face up to the difficult truths, we can start to improve our situation, and we’ll be better off.
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