Life in the Shallows

It took me a while to get through Nicholas Carr's excellent new book The Shallows (Atlantic Books, 2010). Normally I skim read any non-fiction book in an hour or two but, because this is exactly what Carr is warning against, I felt obliged to skim this with my full attention (if that makes any sense). The opportunity finally came after four days and fifty miles of trekking up and down the Alps on the French-Italian border, when two days of rest on the Cote d'Azur finally left me with some time to kill and an absence of interruptions.

As Carr makes quite clear right up front, his book is 'not a manifesto for Luddites, nor does it seek to turn back the clock. Rather it is a revelatory reminder of how far the internet has become enmeshed in our daily existence and is affecting the way we think.'

Carr himself has been an active user of all internet technologies from the outset. He has actively engaged in all aspects of web 2.0. However, he realised something was wrong - or at least had changed - when a number of his colleagues echoed his own feelings that they were finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate for any sustained periods on reading or any other activity that required deep levels of concentration. He was stuck in the shallows. Why was this happening? Was this a localised phenomenon or something more universal?

In The Shallows, Carr explains why it is that he believes that the internet (and all the gadgetry that goes with it) is changing the way we think and behave. He examines the increasingly strong evidence for the brain's plasticity (its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances throughout our lives) which certainly adds plausibility to his thesis. He describes how major historic developments in media (the written word, printing, and to a lesser extent radio, TV, cinema, etc.) have all had major impacts on the way we think and behave, and how the internet is bringing about changes every bit as significant. Critical to his argument is Marshall McLuhan's idea that 'the medium is the message.' A new medium is not just a neutral channel for the same old communication practices - it actually shapes those practices:

'As particular circuits in our brain strengthen through the repetition of a physical or mental activity, they begin to transform that activity into a habit ... Once we've wired new circuitry in our brain we long to keep it activated.'

So, what are the implications of constantly switching our attention from one communication stream to another, skimming over text, interrupting our reading to click on seemingly irresistible links, and needing to be constantly visible to an ever-wider circle of contacts? A first thought is that anyone developing e-learning content should be assuming their material  will only be skimmed and that the maximum attention span is likely to be in minutes, not hours. Likewise, those who run virtual classroom sessions should be upping the level of interaction. I'll be returning to these and other thoughts that have arisen from Carr's work in future posts.

As someone who is not the greatest of swimmers, being in the shallows is not so bad. At least I skim quite a few books, which is a lot more than most manage. And I benefit enormously from the constant stream of new inputs to which I make myself available. Whether I've compromised my ability to reflect deeply is open to question. After all, in the past five years I've managed close to 600 blog postings but have still not quite finished the book that I started three years ago. I'll get back to that tomorrow. Or the day after.