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mrchance 's review for:
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
by Nicholas Carr
Oops! I forgot to review this one. We read this for book club, and my library was out of physical copies, so I ended up "reading" a book about the differences between reading text in print vs. on the Internet by listening to it on audio. Crazy stuff.
Since book club, I lost my notecard. But I remember being simulataneously frustrated and amazed at all the history Carr includes in the book. The impatient part of me yelled, get to the point! But the inquisitive part of me found it fascinating the comparisons of the Internet -- and how it changes our brain -- to earlier inventions, like the clock and the map. It's mind-boggling to imagine a time when TIME ITSELF was an invention. I can only imagine being, say, 20 and getting my first timepiece, being obsessed with seconds ticking by until I go crazy.
Although I didn't finish listening to the book before it was due back at the library, we talked about close reading a lot in book club. Much of the text vs. internet debate is about the loss of close reading, but in my opinion, close reading, if it ever existed at all, was but a brief moment in overall human history. Carr tells us how reading used to be done OUT LOUD, which kind of make it impossible for close reading, as we define it today. Reading to oneself was at first crazy before it became the norm. And who among us gives the same attention to every word in a sentence. The a's, the the's, the commas and the periods? No one, that's who.
Another interesting fact I recall is how when books were first invented, pornographic stories were almost instantly printed. That's human's for ya. Find a new technology, and get porn on there as fast as possible.
Anyway, Carr writes a thoughtful book that isn't a sensational call to action, but allows its reader to discuss and draw their own conclusions. It provided for a very interesting book club discussion.
Since book club, I lost my notecard. But I remember being simulataneously frustrated and amazed at all the history Carr includes in the book. The impatient part of me yelled, get to the point! But the inquisitive part of me found it fascinating the comparisons of the Internet -- and how it changes our brain -- to earlier inventions, like the clock and the map. It's mind-boggling to imagine a time when TIME ITSELF was an invention. I can only imagine being, say, 20 and getting my first timepiece, being obsessed with seconds ticking by until I go crazy.
Although I didn't finish listening to the book before it was due back at the library, we talked about close reading a lot in book club. Much of the text vs. internet debate is about the loss of close reading, but in my opinion, close reading, if it ever existed at all, was but a brief moment in overall human history. Carr tells us how reading used to be done OUT LOUD, which kind of make it impossible for close reading, as we define it today. Reading to oneself was at first crazy before it became the norm. And who among us gives the same attention to every word in a sentence. The a's, the the's, the commas and the periods? No one, that's who.
Another interesting fact I recall is how when books were first invented, pornographic stories were almost instantly printed. That's human's for ya. Find a new technology, and get porn on there as fast as possible.
Anyway, Carr writes a thoughtful book that isn't a sensational call to action, but allows its reader to discuss and draw their own conclusions. It provided for a very interesting book club discussion.