This assignment is due by Monday, February 27 at NOON. No credit will be given for late posts.
Read Nicholas Carr's book THE SHALLOWS, Prologue, Chapters 3-5.
Then, at our COURSE blog, reflect on the following:
1. Discuss THREE specific observations Carr makes in EACH chapter. Use 2-3 sentences for each observation, and combine his quoted observations with an IYOW analysis.
2. Ask ONE specific question of Carr, after reading all 3 chapters.
Chapter 3:
ReplyDelete-The chapter starts off with Carr explaining the history of maps and explains that "our intellectual maturation as individuals can be traced through the way we draw pictures, or maps, of our surroundings."
-Carr then goes on to tell the history of clocks and states that "the clock's methodical ticking helped bring into being the scientific mind and the scientific man."
-Carr states, "The process of our mental and social adaption to new intellectual technologies is reflected in, and reinforced by, the changing metaphors we use to portray and explain the workings of nature."
Chapter 4:
-Carr begins this chapter by describing writing mediums in history. He discusses the progression from writing on rocks to writing on scrolls to writing in books.
-Carr then goes on to explain the history of the reader. Carr says, "Our fast-paced, reflexive shifts in focus were once crucial to our survival. They reduced the odds that a predator would take us by surprise or that we'd overlook a nearby source of food. For most of history, the normal path of human thought was anything but linear."
-Carr believes "a new intellectual ethic is taking hold." and that we are experiencing an "electronic revolution".
Chapter 5:
- Carr says, "The way the web has progressed as a medium replays, with the velocity of a time-lapse film, the entire history of modern media." He continues to state that the internet has compacted hundreds of years into a couple of decades.
-Reading text online is different from reading on paper because it changes the way we navigate writing. It also affects how much we pay attention and focus on what we are reading.
-The sales of e-books have been increasing much faster than the sales of actual books. Carr believes the "the e-book has started to take hold".
QUESTION: Do you have a kindle?
Chapter Three:
ReplyDelete- "If the proliferation of public changed the way people worked, shopped, played, and otherwise behaved as members of . . . society, the spread of more personal tools for tracking time . . . had more intimate consequences." I thought this whole part of the chapter was interesting because I never considered clocks changing society on a vast scale, but it makes perfect sense.
- Carr breaks down our technologies into four categories, one of which he names, "intellectual technologies," which include books, typewriters, globes, computers, etc. He states that "The intellectual ethic of a technology is rarely recognized by its inventors." This is a very succinct way of putting this specific idea into words, and I agree with Carr.
- Carr discusses the fact the revolution brought about by the shift from oral culture to literary culture. This completely changed the lives of all humans the same way any new technology does - a pattern that Carr is demonstrating over and over again in this book.
Chapter Four:
- In discussing early writing, where spaces and punctuation didn't exist in written word, Carr states that "Reading was like working out a puzzle." I think most people who read take the rules of written word for granted and don't think about how easy such devices as punctuation make reading.
- After the collapse of the Roman Empire, reading finally became more of a personal thing than an oral tradition - "Reading was becoming less an act of performance and more a means of personal instruction and improvement." This was the point when rules and syntax became imposed on the written word. This enabled reading to be more private and to be read silently.
- Carr notes that "The natural state of the human brain . . . is one of distractedness." I found this fascinating because our education system and a great part of society relies on humans being focused on individual tasks and objects for long periods of time. So if this is not our natural state, why do we do it? Because reading taught us to? (I'm incorporating my question into my observations, hope that's okay.)
Chapter Five:
- "The Net differs from most of the mass media it replaces in an obvious and very important way: it's bidirectional." Literally anything that can be seen and/or heard can be accessed by or uploaded to the web. Crazy!
- ". . . most Americans, no matter what their age, spend at least eight and a half hours a day looking at a television, a computer monitor, or the screen of their mobile phone." Screens are so much a part of our every day lives that they are just "there," we don't even think about how much we look at them (at least I didn't until just now).
- Carr states that "Because of the ubiquity of text on the Net and our phones," we're reading more today than ever before, but our reading of paper media has decreased. When most people think "reading," they think of books, printed text on paper. Reading is something that you do for school, not a subconscious all-day-every-day activity.
Ch 3
ReplyDelete-Carr discusses several new technologies and their influence on the human mind. Maps, for example, allowed humans to understand their place in the world.
-Carr lists 4 different kinds of technology, technologies that expand our physical abilities (automobile), technologies that heighten our senses (telescope), technologies that change nature to help us (pasteurization), and technologies that heighten our mental abilities (written language).
-Technology often progresses not as planned but out of our control. The side effects can often be unintended and dangerous.
Ch 4
-The human mind evolved to shift focus to any changing stimulus. Maybe this is why the internet is so attractive.
-Book reading requires intense focus, and allows for deeper reflection.
-Changes were created by technology of writing and later the printing press. Ideas began to spread more quickly, and the strict religious ethic of the Dark ages gave way to the enlightenment. Much of the progress we’ve achieved since the invention of the printing press is a result of a culture based on readers who had an understanding of more sophisticated forms of argument.
Ch 5
-The time we spend surfing the net has skyrocketed in recent years. This time spent on the internet has come at the expense of reading books and newspapers while TV viewing has increased slightly.
-While old technologies remain, it is the cutting edge technology that shapes our culture. For example, magazines and newspaper articles are becoming shorter and more friendly for skimming in response to the internet culture.
-Carr says that hyperlinks may open people up to related pages, but they also distract from the original message.
Q. Do you think it's possible for people to learn to use the web for the kind of deeper thought that the printed word encouraged?
Chapter 3
ReplyDeleteCarr opens this chapter discussing how map making and time keeping developed as technologies. These are early examples of “tools of the mind” as Carr aptly titles the chapter. Carr says, “the technology of the map gave man a new and more comprehending mind” (pg 50), meaning that our development of systems to track abstract ideas like time actually expands the potential of our thinking.
With the advent of time tracking technology, the daily routines of people began to change. Starting with Christian monks who lived by tight pray schedules, had an obvious need for knowing the time. Enter the church bells peeling every hour or half-hour. This desire spread as lives became more regimented and time pieces became smaller, cheaper and more reliable.
Carr is able to break technology into four categories: to extend our physical strength, to amplify our senses, to reshape nature and “intellectual technologies” (pg 53), used to extend or expand our thinking. This break down allows us to separate and see clearly how each technology affects our lives. It is obvious that glasses are helpful because they magnify our vision, but it is less clear how commonplace items like clocks shape our routines.
Chapter 4
Writing, a technology now seen as critical for the contemporary world, was not always so. At its beginning, writing was a highly specialized task, reserved for monks who often spent most of their time transcribing Bibles. This early writing lacked the form of today; with no rules to govern how we write, scribes would run words together in a similar way to how one might talk. Scriptura continua would be utterly unrecognizable to us today, but it was the method that predates all the writing we do today.
Early works of writing were crafted with a listener in mind, written to be read out loud. As the technology improved, the idea of private reading caught on. This changed the nature of writing too, “for the first time, [writing] was aimed as much at the eye as the ear” (pg 69). As we learned to read along, internally, the method writers employed changed to foster this. As writing styles became standardized, our minds became more adapt at decipher text, allowing it to “dedicate more resources to interpretation of meaning” (pg 70).
Carr sees the evolution of writing and book production, as well as the move toward introspective reading and the cultural norm of literacy, as being central to the many great advances in technology and thinking of the last 200 years. The development of efficient methods of printing and uniform styles to simplify reading has allowed us to expend less mental energy remembering and more on considering.
Chapter 5
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 5, Carr delves into Turing’s “universal machine”, a device designed universally interpret and write symbols, in order to perform complex calculations. The universal machine that Turing envisioned has been far surpassed by the digital computer, which has succeeded in turning any piece of information into digital code. Once seen as code, the computer can process this information and the web can distribute it to the masses.
The one, most critical, difference between computers and older pieces of intellectual technology is that computers are, as Carr puts it, “bidirectional” (pg. 90). The connective nature makes the Internet incredibly powerful, as we are no longer divided into a smaller group of producers and a larger mass or consumers; today we can and often do take on both roles, sharing information via the net. This back and forth of the Internet sets it apart from the other mediums as it subsumes those mediums, aiming to become a truly universal machine.
One side effect of the vastness of the Internet is the fickle, distracted pattern of our consumption. As Carr states, “the multimedia Net further fragments content and disrupts our concentration” (pg. 96); gone are the days of deep reading and long, uninterrupted periods of concentration. Now information, readily available, streams to us from all over the world, vying for a moment of our attention.
Question: You said “the intellectual ethic is the message that a medium or other tool transmits into the minds and culture of its users”. What do you think the intellectual ethic of the personal computer is?
Chapter 3
ReplyDeleteCarr begins the chapter discussing map making and clocks and how they developed as technologies. These “tools of the mind” caused people to begin to map out their lives as well as expanding their ability for “abstract thinking”.
Carr also breaks technology into four categories, technologies to expand our physical strength, to enhance our senses, to reshape nature and our “intellectual technologies” which are used to extend our ability to think. This breakdown allows us to try and better understand how these different technology influences our lives.
Carr closes the chapter by touching on the shift from oral culture to a literary culture. Carr states that this shift to the written word, “opened to the mind broad new frontiers of thought and expression.” Oral histories couldn’t offer the same qualities because they need to be memorized and don’t offer as much critical thinking.
Chapter 4
At its beginning, writing was not seen as critical to society as it is today. Early writing was reserved for monks who copied the bible, without regard for the grammatical rules used today. This meant that for many people, “reading was like working out a puzzle.” I never think of punctuation as something that had to be invented, just as something that has always been.
Early writing was often created with the idea that they would be read out loud to listeners. With the advance of technology, the idea of private reading began to take hold with people. This led to changes in writing styles as “for the first time, [writing] was aimed as much at the eye as the ear”.
Carr argues that this evolution of writing and reading has led to many of the great advances seen in resent time. Essentially, what this development has led to, is a society that has the tools to understand more sophisticated argument since it doesn’t need to expend as much energy remembering everything.
Chapter 5
Carr describes computers as being, “bidirectional,” which means that the internet allows us to both produce and consume media as opposed to the past when it had to be one or the other.
One effect of this shift according to Carr is that the, “Net further fragments content and disrupts our concentration.” This decline of deep reading for long stretches of time has coincided with an increase more prolific but shorter amounts of information.
Another place this shift to computers can be seen is in public libraries, which have shifted their focus from just books to e-readers and Wi-Fi to try and stay relevant in these technologically changing times.
In his Ch. 3 analysis of the various ways we've developed technologies, from jet engines to timepieces, Carr articulates the 3 specific forms of technological advances that the human race has been able to achieve. The most formidable of this is those that he refers to as "tools of the mind" such as map making and timekeeping. Although we initially developed these tools as a means through which we can make our lives more convenient, we ultimately created (through the great law of unintended consequences) new avenues through which we navigate our understandings and perspectives of the world. The clock, meant simply to ensure that people arrived at the same place at the same time, is now highly individualized and part of our everyday lives. I personally know several people who feel profoundly ill at ease if they do not have some kind of time-keeping device (be it a cell-phone or a watch) on their person at all times. This signals a radical switch, not just from a astrological deduction of what time of day it is, but away from the agrarian lifestyle and towards an increasingly urbanized and regimented way of being and interacting with the world. The overall tools did not change per say, but the ultimate individualization of time (like the internet) has fundamentally changed our understanding of time and information and our reckoning of them.
ReplyDeleteCarr's writing in ch. 4 about the evolution and creation of writing was personally quite enjoyable for me to read as a journalist and general nerd. Having just finished a biography of Johannes Gutenberg I found it remarkable to think about how at one point, writing was almost the exclusive talent and ability of monks as they paid their penance by carefully and minutely transcribing page after page of religious manuscript or text. Much of early writing and publishing wasn't meant as a way of distributing information, but more as a helpful guide to aid in oral recitation and the recounting of stories. As a journalist I took much glee in this, it's not about information, it's about GATHERING people together to share stories with one another. Reading was NOT a solitary activity! Now, however, things have certainly changed. With the evolution of reading aloud to reading silently and in solitude, we've stepped into a different world of communication and contemplation. Reading left the wishy washy land of the limbic brain and marched in lock step into the neocortex to be analyzed, contemplated, synthesized. As Carr argues, the conversation left the open airwaves and moved inwards to vibrant our neurons and radically new and exciting way.
In Ch. 5, Carr describes Turing's near mythological idea of a "universal machine", a device capable of interpreting and outputting symbols with the goal of creating and executing profoundly complex calculations. Obviously, such an idea of this machine has been eclipsed by the advent of the computer and the internet. We are in a state of both convergence (as Steve Jobs has shown us) and what Carr terms on page 90 as "bi-directionality". We are no longer subservient to the great publishers, distributors, or even writers of the day in order to get information. Now we can create it and distribute almost infinitely with the simple use of a public computer for but a few minutes. The great mark of bi-directionality within the internet is that we are every bit as capable (and occasionally more so) of contributing information as we are able to receive it. Previously, when you bought a book or newspaper, the only direct feedback afforded to you (beyond screaming at the heavens) was to dispatch a letter to the editor, sent in solitude, probably never to be read or replied to... leaving our hapless consumer sitting on the edge of their bed wondering if they have a voice at all in any of this. THAT'S depressing. Now, when you read a book, newspaper, or magazine (usually online) you are immediately capable of adequately and powerfully responding to that medium, not just as an individual with an opinion, but as a member of a community of people who have read the same work and, more likely than not, share a roughly similar outlook on both that work and its creator. Things have changed.
ReplyDeleteOf course the great question is: Is the internet changing our brains for the better or for the worse? Obvious question. But more importantly I think would be to ask whether the internet is drawing us together as media makers and commentators, or transforming for social beings and into countless feed back machines that only engage in the limited dialogue afforded by our "info snacking"?
Alright, let's do this. I'm going to try this one the way everyone else seems to be doing these.
ReplyDeleteChapter 3.
The beginning of the chapter explains the origins of maps and mechanical clocks, and how they helped plan their lives more effectively and helped their capacity for thinking abstractly. The concept of time fundamentally changed the course of human history. It's hard to imagine a world without the concept of being late.
Carr also breaks technology into four categories,Strength and mobility, senses, nature and intellect. An example of each would be the car for strength, Prescription glasses for augmenting the senses, modernizing sap collection for nature, and the computer for intellect.
Carr ends this chapter with a discussion of how we as a species have gone from an oral society to a written one. The lack of consistency made oral culture that much more archaic, yet upped the learning curve for information acquisition.
ChApTeR 4:
Furthering his discussion on the evolution of reading and writing Carr talks about how learning these skills was not nearly as important back then as it is today. You did not need to read an instruction manual to understand how to milk a cow, or plow a field. You were told orally, as it was done generations before you.
As the act of writing went from writing to the sake of record keeping to writing for entertainment, writing styles changed. Writing was meant first to be broadcasted rather than an individual activity.
Carr concludes by talking about the wasted energies spent on oral communication. His argument is that because of record keeping, we as a society can focus our energies on progression instead of trying to remember our past.
C h a p t e r 5 :
Carr goes back into the world of computers talking about the dual roles we as operators have with the internet. We are both mass consumers as well as producers. Facebook would not work at all if everyone was observing everything. There needs to be status updates.
Carr also talkes about the inability for operators to focus on one large piece of information, be it an article or lengthy blog post. The information comes to us in fragments - one paragraph with a link leading to a video that leads to a comment that leads to a picture. We can't seem to focus on one piece of information anymore. We need bite-size pieces.
Continuing this thought, Carr talks about the length of newspaper articles, and how, as the internet further supplements us with fragmented mindsets, the papers are writing smaller and smaller articles. Magazines are making 'digital versions,' which have videos that explain the articles to the reader, doing all of the hard work.
I forgot! My question to car this time is - How do you feel about virtual reality? Would you be willing to walk through a virtual shopping mall, a la Amazon?
ReplyDelete