#632: How the Internet Makes Our Minds Shallow

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2020

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Have you found it harder and harder to sit with a good book for long periods of time without getting that itch to check your phone? Well, you're not alone. My guest today makes the case that the internet has changed our brains in ways that make deep, focused thinking harder and harder. His name is Nicholas Carr, and he documented what was then a newly-emerging phenomenon ten years ago in his book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. The Shallows has now been re-released with a new afterword, and Nick and I begin our conversation with how he thinks the effect of digital technology on our minds has or hasn't changed over the last decade. We then discuss the idea of the medium being the message when it comes to the internet, and how this particular medium changes our brains and the ways we think and approach knowledge and the world. Nick then explains how we read texts on screens differently than texts in books, why hyperlinks mess with our ability for comprehension, why it's still important to develop our own memory bank of knowledge even in a time when we can access facts from an outsourced digital brain, and how social media amplifies our craving for the fast and easy-to-digest over the slow and contemplative. We end our conversation with how Nick himself has tried to strike a balance in keeping the advantages of the internet while mitigating its downsides. Get the show notes at aom.is/shallows.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Brat McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.
0:11.1	Have you found it harder and harder to sit with a good book for long periods of time without
0:14.9	getting that itch to check your phone, where you're not alone?
0:17.5	My guest day makes the case that the internet has changed our brains in ways that make deep,
0:21.8	focus thinking harder and harder.
0:23.7	His name is Nicholas Carr and he documented what was then a newly emerging phenomenon
0:27.5	10 years ago in his book The Shalos, what the internet is doing to our brains.
0:31.4	The Shalos has now been re-released with the new afterward and Nick and I began our conversation
0:35.2	with how he thinks the effective digital technology on our minds has or hasn't changed
0:38.8	over the last decade.
0:40.0	We then discussed the idea of the medium being the message when it comes to the internet
0:43.2	and how this particular medium changes our brains in the ways we think and approach
0:46.8	knowledge in the world.
0:48.0	Nick then explains how we read text on screens differently than text in books, why hyperlinks
0:52.4	mess with our ability for comprehension, why it's still important to develop our own memory
0:56.4	bank of knowledge even in a time when we can access facts from an outsourced digital
0:59.9	brain and how social media amplifies our craving for the fast and easy to digest over
1:04.4	the slow and contemplative.
1:05.4	And we inter-conversation with how Nick himself has tried to strike a balance in keeping
1:09.2	the advantage of the internet while mitigating its downsides.
1:11.8	Out of the shows over, check out our show notes at awim.ias slash shalos.
1:16.0	All right, Nicholas Carr, welcome back to the show.
	...

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