What is the main message of The Shallows?

The main message of The Shallows is that the internet is reshaping our brains and altering the way we think.

How long does it take to read The Shallows?

The reading time for The Shallows varies depending on the reader's pace. However, the Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.

Who is the author of The Shallows?

The author of The Shallows is Nicholas Carr.

Society & Culture

The Shallows Book Summary - The Shallows Book explained in key points

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The Shallows summary

Name: The Shallows
Author: Nicholas Carr

Nicholas Carr

What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Brief summary

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr explores how the internet is rewiring our brains, affecting our ability to read deeply and think critically. It argues that this shift in cognition has profound implications for our society and culture.

Topics

Neuroscience Human-Machine Interaction

Table of Contents

The Shallows
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Learn how the internet isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

How good is your memory? Can you remember eloquent passages from your favorite play or book? Recall some of the most important dates in history? Or your favorite recipe?

Most people today struggle to recall any of these facts without the aid of the ever-trusty internet. If you really needed any of that information, it’s just a Google search away.

It’s easy to let the convenience of the internet overshadow something so apparently trivial as our inability to remember recipes. However, the reason that we can’t remember has far-reaching implications for our lives: our growing use of the internet means that the structures of our brains are actually changing.

And these changes aren’t trivial. They’re the reason we can’t concentrate on anything or retain knowledge. Indeed, the marriage of humans and technology poses serious questions about our humanity.

These blinks will teach you exactly how the internet is literally changing our brains, and what that means for us as a society.

In these blinks, you will discover

how buying a typewriter had a profound impact on the work of one of the great philosophers;
why you’ll probably never read Anna Karenina;
and what happens to a monkey’s brain when you chop off its finger.

In spite of our previous scientific understanding, the human brain is plastic and ever changing.

Have you ever considered picking up a new hobby, like playing the violin, only to immediately push away those thoughts, thinking: “I can’t do that! I’m just too old to learn anything new.”

You’re not alone. The idea that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks was popular among neurologists until the 1970s.

The thinking was that, once we reach adulthood, the synapses – that is to say, the links between two neurons in the brain – would decay without being replaced. In other words, once the brain was fully developed, it became totally immalleable.

This idea centered largely around a popular eighteenth-century conception of the brain as a mechanical machine. People thought that the brain worked like a clock comprised of several interoperating components, interlocking like cogwheels. Once the machine had been assembled, it’s function didn’t change, although it might get rusty.

However, in recent years our scientific understanding has changed dramatically. Today, we know that the brain changes with every action we carry out.

Consider, for example, the experiment conducted by Michael Merzenich in 1968, in which he amputated a monkey’s finger and observed the brain region that had previously reacted to stimuli from that finger.

At first, the brain was confused: when Merzenich touched the lower joint of another of the monkey’s fingers, the brain region responsible for the amputated finger also became active.

However, after a while the brain did something highly unexpected: it rewired itself so that the stimulus caused activity in only the correct areas of the brain.

Later experiments involving humans showed that the plasticity of the brain – neuroplasticity – is not just limited to the sensory system, but actually applies to all neural activities: throughout our lives, synapses are linking, then strengthening through repetition, or fading from disuse.

Indeed, you can teach an old dog new tricks.

The human brain is deeply affected by the tools we use.

Suffering from failing vision and hardly able to focus on writing with pen and paper, the famed philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche finally ordered a typewriter. After a short adjustment period, he continued with his writing.

But something had changed. A friend of his noticed that, now that he was using this new technology, Nietzsche’s writing style had somehow changed. It had become more dense and telegraphic – almost “iron.” Why?

The internet has dramatically changed the way we read.

Speaking of tools: Can you imagine trying to read all of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina by scrolling through a web page?

That sounds like a Herculean task, and it’s no surprise: the way that we read has always been heavily influenced by the tools we use.

Internet reading material was supposed to have lots of advantages, but these have never appeared.

If you’re like most parents, you want your children (or future children) to attend a modern school where they have access to multimedia. You might think that it’s important for your child to become accustomed to technology early, and have a fuller, more interactive learning experience.

When the internet first emerged, optimists hoped that the use of hypertext and multimedia would lead to an enriched understanding of written texts. People expected that internet users would be better equipped to compare theories and find diverse perspectives. Without the linear restrictions of a book, users would have a more flexible approach to a given subject.

The internet has changed the way we interact with older technologies, such as books or television.

Would you say that you spend more or less time with print media than you did five years ago? If you read fewer books and newspapers, was this a conscious decision, or did it just somehow happen? It’s very likely that it was the latter.

This is because new technologies don’t just add something new to your life – they also change your perspective and expectations of older technologies.

The internet works as a big interrupting and distracting machine.

Unfortunately, we are largely unaware of the effect that technology has on us. Just as Nietzsche couldn’t have predicted how the typewriter would affect his writing, we couldn’t predict how our use of the internet would change us.

Whether we notice it or not, technology does change us. In fact, the internet has dramatically altered our ability to direct and sustain our attention.

The internet age frees us from having to remember things, but has ruined our ability to memorize.

How many important historical dates can you remember? Can you recall ten examples before having to consult Google?

Probably not. The internet age allows us to outsource our memory, meaning that we need to remember less. Since we can google anything, anytime, remembering facts has become less important than knowing how to find them. Why store information in our brains when it’s stored on a server somewhere?

The internet makes us less human and threatens cultural achievements.

Technology plays an increasingly prevalent role in our lives. And as the borders between artificial and human intelligence slowly evaporate, we risk becoming “less human.”

Qualities that define our humanity, such as our empathy and emotions, increasingly disappear as we become more involved with technology. Instead of having our human characteristics augmented by technology, we instead become more like the machines themselves, allowing them to guide our lives on their terms.

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What is The Shallows about?

The Shallows delves into the seldom-asked question of how technology, and the internet in particular, affects our brains. The Shallows looks at the history of technology and recent studies in psychology and neuroscience to show us how the internet fundamentally rewires our neural circuitry, and why it hasn’t delivered the benefits promised by its champions.

The Shallows Review

The Shallows (2010) explores how the internet is reshaping our brains and our lives, and why understanding this phenomenon is crucial. Here are three reasons why this book is worth reading:

Through compelling research and thought-provoking examples, Carr presents a convincing argument about the impact of the internet on our cognitive abilities.
Challenging the notion of multitasking and the value of deep thinking, the book provokes reflection on how we engage with information and the potential consequences.
With its engaging exploration of history and neuroscience, the book offers a balanced perspective on the advantages and disadvantages of the digital age and encourages critical thinking.

Best quote from The Shallows

What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.

—Nicholas Carr

Who should read The Shallows?

Anyone interested in the internet and neuroscience
People who can’t seem to concentrate on anything anymore
Technological Futurists and Solutionists

About the Author

Nicholas Carr is a US writer who focuses on themes such as culture and technology. He has written for many publications, including the Guardian, the New York Times and Wired, and has also penned a number of books, including The Big Switch and Does IT Matter?

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Society & Culture Psychology Technology & the Future

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