The Shallows

Author NICHOLAS CARR
Publisher ATLANTIC BOOKS
ISBN 1-84887-227-1

The subject matter of this book, written in a style readily accessible to us all, is “How the Internet is changing the way we read, think and remember.” Carr draws on the latest scientific research in order to bring to light the fact that the net is literally re- wiring our brains.

Although there are ‘up-sides’ and it is impossible to stop the increase of this technology, yet, to be warned of the downsides and to adjust our relationship to it and that of our children is of paramount concern. This author is not strongly reactionary and does not write in an inflammatory style. He is informative and there is a note of ‘prophetic warning’ although the book is not a Christian book. There is a bringing together of sufficient data and research here to warrant Carr’s insistence that the internet is moving us away from what he calls ‘deep thought’ (by which he means thinking seriously about things), to the shallows of knowing a little about a lot without understanding any of it and to the shallows of distraction. The bottom line is that the World Wide Web is actually fostering ignorance.

The physical effects on our brains being produced by the increasing use of this technology is an amazing revelation although, if we observe those enmeshed in the net and the gadgetry associated with it can see only too well the superficiality it engenders. Carr is not the only one who is writing in this vein of warning. He is not a Luddite (these were workers who, in the nineteenth century destroyed the machinery they felt was endangering their jobs). He is reasoned and thoroughly thought provoking in the way he presents his thesis. For those of us who are Christians, we need to be warned by the contents of this book partly because of the way that the internet and the technology of our day is producing a certain mindlessness that will result in highly manipulatable and programmable human beings.

That the prophetic note sounded in these pages links with some of the prophetic sections of the Bible as to what will occur ‘in the last days’ is undeniable. Carr warns of the addictive elements of Internet use and the way that serious reading is replaced by scanning a document. So it goes on as argument upon argument enforces the author’s contentions. The Internet appears to be making a feast available to those who use it, but its effects are more like a famine.

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