How the internet is changing the way we read, think and remember - A book review

I am not a digital native, grew up in India in the 90’s, it was a time most of knowledge was consumed through physical books. Though there were few educational programming on Doordarshan (India's state television). Mostly it was physical books. As I moved into the Digital era, my first resort to find answer to questions were not looking into books but asking Google. Searching for trivia was not just a one off thing, it had a become an habit. We have arrived at a time where it’s not just the computer that is connected this network of computers (internet) our phones (interestingly name Smartphone) watches, appliances are increasingly connected. It is become some omnipresent it almost seems like it has become almost impossible to stay from the peering eyes of the internet. Internet celebrated its thirtieth anniversary a few months back. I don’t think no other technological revolution (its called the fifth revolution) has had such an impact on the human brain as before.

That’s is exactly what Nicolas Carr wants to capture in this book, the effect of the internet on our brains. I knew intuitively that something was amiss. In one of my conversation with a person across the globe, I was sharing how distracted I get during work. He said, its not something that is unique to me but he’s going through the same problem and suggested that I used Pomodoro timer. Couple of years back I was made aware of this book The Shallows by a pastor friend who refuses to a smart phone, little dated but quite relevant. With computers and internet changing the way we do things. Its confirming my fears that we have become an attention deficient generation. My brain is being rewired even without my knowledge. I find that It’s increasingly becoming difficult to focus on a single task for a long hours (which interestingly Cal Newport a professor at George Town university calls “Deep Work”). Yes, Deep work that’s what we lack. As Cal predicts this the one that is going to differentiate people who produce excellent and mediocre work. This lack of reading and focused attention is being confirmed by Christian authors like Randy Alcorn and Philip Yancey. Who cite how deep reading has become increasingly difficult? Carr’s book is a clarion call to us to “redeem our time” and focus on deep work. Lot of the blame has definitely to go to the ubiquity of internet.

Shallows shows how we have come to become such shallow workers. It’s a clarion call to everyone to be careful of how our cyber habits are changing us. We seem to live in Shallows (superficial) rather thorough life. 

Two others authors who talk about it.

https://philipyancey.com/reading-wars

https://www.epm.org/blog/2019/Feb/22/philip-yancey-his-own-personal-reading-crisis-and-