The Shallows (book)

Last updated

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
The Shallows.jpg
Author Nicholas G. Carr
LanguageEnglish
Publisher W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date
2010
Media typePrint (Hardback)
Pages280
ISBN 978-0-393-33975-8

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, published in the United Kingdom as The Shallows: How the Internet Is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember, is a 2010 book by the American journalist Nicholas G. Carr. Published by W. W. Norton & Company, the book expands on the themes first raised in "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", Carr's 2008 essay in The Atlantic , and explores the effects of the Internet on the brain. The book claims research shows "online reading" yields lower comprehension than reading a printed page. [1] The Shallows was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction. [2] [3]

Contents

Impact

The band I Like Trains released a 2012 concept album, The Shallows , influenced by the book. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pulitzer Prize</span> Awards for American journalism and arts

The Pulitzer Prizes are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters." They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pulitzer Prize for Fiction</span> American award for distinguished novels

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during the preceding calendar year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Powers</span> American novelist (born 1957)

Richard Powers is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. His novel The Echo Maker won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction. He has also won many other awards over the course of his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship. As of 2024, Powers has published fourteen novels and has taught at the University of Illinois and Stanford University. He won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory.

<i>The Christian Science Monitor</i> News outlet owned by Christian Science church

The Christian Science Monitor (CSM), commonly known as The Monitor, is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles both in electronic format and a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the new religious movement Christian Science, Church of Christ, Scientist.

<i>Hartford Courant</i> Daily newspaper in Connecticut, US

The Hartford Courant is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is advertised as the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven and east of Waterbury, its headquarters on Broad Street in Hartford, Connecticut was a short walk from the state capitol. It reports regional news with a chain of bureaus in smaller cities and a series of local editions. It also operates CTNow, a free local weekly newspaper and website.

<i>The Oregonian</i> Daily newspaper published in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

The Oregonian is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. West Coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850, and published daily since 1861. It is the largest newspaper in Oregon and the second largest in the Pacific Northwest by circulation. It is one of the few newspapers with a statewide focus in the United States. The Sunday edition is published under the title The Sunday Oregonian. The regular edition was published under the title The Morning Oregonian from 1861 until 1937.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rita Dove</span> American poet and author (born 1952)

Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and essayist. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African American to have been appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 from the previous "consultant in poetry" position (1937–86). Dove also received an appointment as "special consultant in poetry" for the Library of Congress's bicentennial year from 1999 to 2000. Dove is the second African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1987, and she served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. Since 1989, she has been teaching at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she held the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English from 1993 to 2020; as of 2020, she holds the chair of Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicholas G. Carr</span> American journalist and writer

Nicholas G. Carr is an American journalist and writer who has published books and articles on technology, business, and culture. His book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.

John W. Dower is an American author and historian. His 1999 book Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II won the U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction, the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, the Bancroft Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, and the John K. Fairbank Prize of the American Historical Association.

<i>Chattanooga Times Free Press</i> Newspaper in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States

The Chattanooga Times Free Press is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is distributed in the metropolitan Chattanooga region of southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia. It is one of Tennessee's major newspapers and is owned by WEHCO Media, Inc., a diversified communications company with ownership in 14 daily newspapers, 11 weekly newspapers and 13 cable television companies in six states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Dirda</span> American literary critic (born 1948)

Michael Dirda is an American book critic, working for the Washington Post. He has been a Fulbright Fellow and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas B. Edsall</span> American journalist and academic

Thomas Byrne Edsall is an American journalist and academic. He is best known for his weekly opinion column for The New York Times, Previously, he worked as a reporter for The Providence Journal and for The Baltimore Sun, and as a correspondent for The New Republic. In addition, he spent 25 years covering national politics for the Washington Post. He held the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Chair at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism until 2014.

<i>Turtle Island</i> (book) 1974 book by Gary Snyder

Turtle Island is a book of poems and essays written by Gary Snyder and published by New Directions in 1974. The writings express Snyder's vision for humans to live in harmony with the earth and all its creatures. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1975. "Turtle Island" is a name for the continent of North America used by many Native American tribes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Is Google Making Us Stupid?</span> 2008 magazine article by Nicholas G. Carr

Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains! is a magazine article by technology writer Nicholas G. Carr, and is highly critical of the Internet's effect on cognition. It was published in the July/August 2008 edition of The Atlantic magazine as a six-page cover story. Carr's main argument is that the Internet might have detrimental effects on cognition that diminish the capacity for concentration and contemplation. Despite the title, the article is not specifically targeted at Google, but more at the cognitive impact of the Internet and World Wide Web. Carr expanded his argument in The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, a book published by W. W. Norton in June 2010.

Screen reading is the act of reading a text on a computer screen, smartphone, e-book reader,

Paul Harding is an American musician and author, best known for his debut novel Tinkers (2009), which won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2010 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, among other honors. He is currently the director of the Creative Writing and Literature MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, as well as Interim Associate Provost of Stony Brook University's Lichtenstein Center.

Various researchers have undertaken efforts to examine the psychological effects of Internet use. Some research employs studying brain functions in Internet users. Some studies assert that these changes are harmful, while others argue that asserted changes are beneficial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Christian</span> American non-fiction author and researcher

Brian Christian is an American non-fiction author, poet, programmer and researcher, best known for a bestselling series of books about the human implications of computer science, including The Most Human Human (2011), Algorithms to Live By (2016), and The Alignment Problem (2020).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily St. John Mandel</span> Canadian writer (born 1979)

Emily St. John Mandel is a Canadian novelist and essayist. She has written six novels, including Station Eleven (2014), The Glass Hotel (2020), and Sea of Tranquility (2022). Station Eleven, which has been translated into 33 languages, has been adapted into a limited series on HBO Max. The Glass Hotel was translated into twenty languages and was selected by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of 2020. Sea of Tranquility was published in April 2022 and debuted at number three on The New York Times Best Seller list.

References

  1. "'The Shallows': This Is Your Brain Online". NPR.org. June 2, 2010.
  2. Tenner, E. (2010). No Brainer? The Wilson Quarterly, 34(4): 92-95. (subscription required)
  3. "The Pulitzer Prizes - Finalists" . Retrieved May 27, 2013.
  4. Simon Jay Catling (May 11, 2012). "Reviews I Like Trains THE SHALLOWS". The Quietus. Retrieved February 11, 2016.

Additional reading