As we enjoy the Web and all it offers---a wealth of information and easy access to that information and the vehicle to express ourselves---are we sacrificing our ability to read deeply (the Web fosters quick and shallow reading) and think deeply? Carr says yes.
Carr cites research study after research study showing that the Web is rewiring our brains (our brains show plasticity even into adulthood), rerouting our neural pathways, lessening our ability to think and concentrate.
The Web greatly enhances our ability to scan and skim, but at the cost of reducing our attention span so that some of us find it more difficult to concentrate long enough in order to read linear print---a book.
Some heavy internet users have stopped reading books. They don't have the patience and the ability concentrate necessary to read books anymore. Books focus our attention. The computer screen distracts our concentated attention as we read bits of information, jumping around fron one source to another, our attention moving from one thing to another.
So says Nicholas Carr.
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