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May 18, 2013
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 Cyberspace DunderheadsPosted on Jun 8, 2010By Ruth Marcus I’ve come down with a bad case of the shallows. That’s technology writer Nicholas Carr’s term—and the title of his new book—for the invisible, invidious impact of computers on the modern brain. Carr compares himself to HAL, the malfunctioning computer in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” lamenting as its circuitry is unplugged, “Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it.” As Carr writes, “I can feel it too. Over the last few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think.” Trying to read a book, he says, “my concentration starts to drift after a page or two. ... I feel like I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the test.” Me too. I thought it was middle age, and maybe it is, or perhaps belatedly self-diagnosed adult attention deficit disorder. But Carr’s assessment—“what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away at my capacity for concentration and contemplation”—jibed uncomfortably with my own experience. Once upon a time, which is to say before the advent of the Internet, my work as a journalist involved reading documents, making phone calls, attending events. Turning to the keyboard, or the screen, was the end of the assembly line. Advertisement I must know—now—what has arrived in my in-box, even though almost all of it is junk. I live an alt-tab existence, constantly shuttling among the open windows on my browser. I have switched, in Carr’s formulation, from “reading to power-browsing.” I am a lab rat “constantly pressing levers to get tiny pellets of social or intellectual nourishment.” I love technology. It lets me work better and faster. It untethers me from a physical office and allows me to, well, alt-tab efficiently between work and family. E-mail and social networking, with the combination of ease of access and remoteness of interaction, help make and renew personal connections. But technology also takes its toll—including physically. “The technology is rewiring our brains,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, to The New York Times. The brain is malleable, and, like any regular exercise, the instant gratification world of the Web helps build certain neural connections while others molder. The implications of this are most worrisome for children. Like Carr, I had an “analogue youth” before a “digital adulthood.” A modern child’s existence is all digital, all the time. Children have constant access to stimulation—on their laptops, on their iPods, on their cell phones. It is no surprise that their capacity to submerge themselves for hours at a stretch in the world of a book has been diminished. Their brains are wired to expect more stimulation. My current household technological battle involves making certain the kids turn off Facebook and cell phones when studying. They believe this to be not only unnecessary but rude: In an age where no one is ever really out of contact, how could they possibly be inaccessible to their friends? And then there is the disturbing question of how the era of virtual communications affects friendships and personality. Kids prefer text over talk; it is, to them, more efficient. But the inability to discern tone and inflection enhances the possibilities of misunderstanding, and the distancing effect of disembodied language lowers the barrier for hurtful speech. In a new study, researchers at the University of Michigan found that college students today are about 40 percent lower in empathy, measured by standard personality tests, than their counterparts 20 and 30 years ago. The biggest drop occurred after 2000, coinciding with the rise of online communications and social networking, and the study’s author, Sara Konrath, sees a possible correlation. “Empathy is best activated when you can see another person’s signal for help,” she told USA Today. The subtitle of Carr’s book is “What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.” Perhaps he should worry about our hearts as well. Ruth Marcus’ e-mail address is marcusr(at symbol)washpost.com. © 2010, Washington Post Writers Group  TAGS:
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By Jim Effect, February 6, 2012 at 7:22 pm Link to this comment
There is no doubt that the advent of the internet has seriously impaired a lot of the brain functions that we have relied on so heavily on the past. Today, information is so readily available that we no longer need to remember as much information like we used to. Anything that cannot be recalled can be Googled. Google effectively replaced the need for looking through printed materials for answers. I wonder how much more damage this effect on our brains can cause in the long run.
Report thisBy Robart Thomas, December 4, 2010 at 10:33 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
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Report thisBy Robin Turner, June 11, 2010 at 2:28 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Tetro, stupid comments in public forums are at an unprecedented level mainly because the number of people commenting is at an unprecedented level.
Report thisBy Tetro, June 10, 2010 at 7:13 pm Link to this comment
Those who argued that TV makes you dull would have
Report thisbeen right, too. Most people consume these mediums—
and don’t use them in the way that idealists like to
talk about, those who say that it’s a tool, a means
of gathering information, of reaching out. Instead
what happens is you have large masses of the
population that are more interested in creating an
alternate reality, rather than engaging in reality.
You can see this everywhere, examples don’t even need
to be given. This has terrible consequences as you
can see by the comments section on many websites…
particularly CNN. People make comments that show an
unprecedented level of apathy and ignorance in a
public forum; they probably do this because, having
been consumed by the internet, they really don’t care
about issues in the country and world that affect
them, because their world is in fact plugged into the
wall. But no one has to live with these things, and
many don’t.
By mk, June 10, 2010 at 9:03 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I would guess that the illegitimate ascendence of Bush/Cheney (circa 2000) had a
Report thislot to do with the sharp drop in this country’s Empathy Quotient.
By ofersince72, June 9, 2010 at 6:04 pm Link to this comment
The surrounding world around me proves how the
internet has textured the cultures closer together.
For we now have special ops in seventy five countries
carrying out overt and covert ops.
We put even more carbon out of the ground and into the
atmosphere.
The youth, more knowedgeable than ever.
Report thisBy jean Gerard, June 9, 2010 at 5:55 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Well, it ain’t all negative! People have access to more information, ideas,
possibilities than ever before—if they know how to use it—which requires at
least four years of college to teach them how to weed out the drivel.
Those who go for drivel on line, go for drivel off line, unfortunately.
Actually, the net is so new that we don’t yet know whether we are trapped by it
or enabled. It’s too early to predict.
As to empathy, on line people see far more suffering—if relating to others’
suffering is what creates empathy. In fact, it may work the other way—if it’s
so overwhelming that people escape it by saying there’s nothing I can do. In
reverse, millions of people not online know a lot about suffering and have also
concluded there is nothing they can do. Hopelessness is not a necessary
product of the net. Evasion of responsibility is as old as the hills.
Reminder: The Holocaust was committed by people who had never even seen a
Report thiscomputer.
By ofersince72, June 9, 2010 at 5:54 pm Link to this comment
TRUTH…....LIGHT….....THE INTERNET….....
WE HAVE EVOLVED…....
Report thisBy Jackie, June 9, 2010 at 4:47 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
This is not “worrisome for children”, it is evolution and they’re fine with it. Everything changes and that’s not only actually acceptable, it’s inevitable and uncontrollable.
Report thisIt worries those clinging to the ‘old’ way, understandable but futile. I read online and am able to do great research easily and still read books everyday and can concentrate fine because I’m engaged and I’m not a journalist having to hop to the same stories on different services. The malady you’re writing of is an occupational
hazard. Take care of yourself Ruth, resist narrowing, get around.
By Géza Éder, June 9, 2010 at 2:02 pm Link to this comment
Don’t be too quick to judge this. Afaik, the decline in quality of education output and the increase in media consumption among kids correlate pretty well, and - definitely in Hungary - there’s a very sizeable group of teachers who think that a changing culture is in fact responsible for that. This doesn’t mean that computers or movies or TV are responsible for this as technologies - they’re just pretty great vehicles for stuff that does make you dumber if you consume to much of it.
I think education is in a very large part in trouble because of this, since kids today are more influenced (and “educated”) by mass media than by parents or schools. Education is built on hard work and delayed satisfaction - but it has to compete for children’s brain-time with ads, video games or TV series, the entire requirement towards which is that they should be as easy to consume and as addictive as possible. Add to this the difference in money spent on marketing and product design for these products and compare it with the money available for research into how to actually teach kids (as opposed to manipulation).
Report thisBy Robin Turner, June 9, 2010 at 1:05 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The web only provides “instant gratification” when you are doing the kind of things that can be achieved instantly. Try to do something a bit harder on the web and you will find that not only are your powers of concentration just as good as they were, but hours have passed while you tried to solve just one problem.
As for all this about how kids can’t spend an hour reading a book any more, how on earth do they manage to finish all those Harry Potter novels?
Report thisBy cheyennebode, June 9, 2010 at 10:34 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
THE EARTH IS NOW COVERED WITH COMPUTERS EACH IN FACT A NEURON
Report thisTHAT INTERCONNECTS MAKING AN ORGANIC EARTHLY BRAIN•••WHAT AN
INCREDIBLE ADVANCEMENT ••• I BELIEVE THE EARTH TO BE A LIVING
ORGANISM LIKE US •• AND NEEDS THOSE WONDERFUL SUNBEAMS AS WE
DO•• HAIL TO THE GREAT MOTHER
By ofersince72, June 9, 2010 at 7:34 am Link to this comment
Anarcisse
All of the above and more !!!
Report thisBy Anarcissie, June 9, 2010 at 7:26 am Link to this comment
I remember when people used to blame television for making them stupid.
By the way, when did the word empathy replace sympathy? Empathy means knowing what another feels, not feeling what they feel or caring about them—that’s sympathy. Are Washington Post columnists not only stupid, but illiterate?
Report thisBy kerryrose, June 9, 2010 at 2:56 am Link to this comment
After reading many of Marcus’ blogs, I can agree. She has a terrible case of the ‘shallows.’
Report thisBy ofersince72, June 9, 2010 at 2:04 am Link to this comment
MINDLESS ENTERTAINMENT, RUTH, THAT IS ALL
THE INTERNET IS.
Report thisBy ofersince72, June 9, 2010 at 2:03 am Link to this comment
No Ruthy, don’t reach for that blackberry, throw it away.
throw all those cell phones Ruthy. Your lap top to !!!!
One computer in the house is bad enough that we use.
Home computers have not contributed to society on least
bit!!!!! They are merely entertainment, like what I am
doing right now, that is the only purpose computers serve.
The net has been around long enough to judge that…
Report thisWe are still an ignorant society that will do anything,
kill anything, destroy anything, tear whole nations down,
drone this and drone that for our convientent entertainment.
Show me how they have helped you Ruth, you claim that you
spend most of your time surfing. How edifying..
We still elect criminals into office, have our commandos
murdering in at least two dozen countries, what has the
internet done good other then mindless entertainment.
Call it what it is, it hasn’t made you one bit smarter.
Ruth , quit watching television too.
Oh, Oh, Oh, us do gooder liberals,,,Oh , Oh , Oh.
computer this !!!!!!!!!