What are Veeky Forums's thoughts on nicholas carr's the shallows?

What are Veeky Forums's thoughts on nicholas carr's the shallows?

Reading it now and wondering what others think of it

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I tried reading it but I kept losing attention and browsing Veeky Forums instead.

lmao great banter

Been put off reading it just because it was published in 2012, idk feels like the internet has moved on a lot since then. Pretty open to being talked round though

>like the internet has moved on a lot since then.

The basic principles are the same. The main point of the book is that the internet is a hypertext as opposed to a linear text of, say, a book. When we're focused entirely on learning how to read the former, it becomes difficult to concentrate on reading the latter.

its not about internet so much as it is about they way we think, the way that our brains functions.

Is it bad to think in the internet influenced way described by the book?

Maybe, what are your thoughts on this?

hes right

i alternate between being helplessly addicted to the internet, spending every waking hour online, multiple tabs open, clicking refresh, in which phase i cannot read a book at all, cannot concentrate for more than a few seconds, my eyes just slip all over the words - between that and staying away from the internet, and reading books, cultivating a deep concentration, being able to think linearly. its like heaven and hell (obviously Veeky Forums is hell).

the problem is that after a few weeks of staying away from the internet i think i can handle it again, i'll just go on it for a few minutes, and at first i can read long articles, because ive been cultivating a capacity for concentration. but you can do things so quickly on the internet that its hard to resist doing things more rapidly, you would have to consciously slow yourself down to prevent it - so im opening tabs, no that's boring, switch to another one, refresh, refresh, go back here - and before i know it, my concentration's destroyed again, and i have to learn how to read again.

I'd say it's not as good. The internet is detrimental to your attention span in the sense that it is designed to keep you constantly entertained. People that are addicted to the internet and have ridiculously short attention spans get anxiety in addition to boredom because they can't grasp the idea that sometimes it's good to be bored. They feel they have to be doing something at all times, even if it's as mundane as diddling on a smart phone.

People can't understand complex ideas if they don't take the time to read about them, or at the least hear someone speak about them. You can't do that if you are looking for a quick dopamine rush that you get from reading Twitter or Veeky Forums,

Good like finding a person that is under 35 that you can watch a movie with without them looking at their phone. It's not like what they're looking at is important, it's just become a compulsion

This is also how bad alcoholics' operate. They start drinking from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to bed, unable to really focus on or do anything except worry about their next drink. Then they get sober and after enough time has passed they think they can have "just a few" but after a few days are at the gas station at 8 in the morning buying a pint of vodka

I can really relate to this

>Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

>Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

Killing the internet is just the start. It's a small leap from Nicholas Carr to Jacques Ellul. The influence technology has on how we think, not just what we think, is a seriously neglected subject.

jesus this sounds terrible but fuck off its happening to me right now

that's a creative way to show a subtitle

also nice double 70s my dude

Intenet kills le intention span

I find it physically difficult to read after spending a long time at the computer. The text swirls around and I start seeing a phantom cursor. After a few minutes it goes away but it's a scary feeling.

When I was little my mom would say "user you've got square eyeballs from staring at that monitor!"

LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH

Boring book.

>caring about medium over content

Serves you right.

>Good like finding a person that is under 35 that you can watch a movie with without them looking at their phone. It's not like what they're looking at is important, it's just become a compulsion

This is happening more to me lately. It's come to a point where I have to constantly remind myself that my anxious behavior stems from a feeling of being compelled to act in a way that doesn't come naturally - checking my laptop for messenger updates or constantly thinking about what I say in fear somebody might be offended.

Anyway, I've read this book and it's a good insight into how the internet alters the brain - not something that sounds radical but Carr explains it all very convincingly.

The movie was ok

delete this

Rip-off of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (Kojima, 2001).

well I second that. its happening with me too.

I honestly hate reading about neuro-science, because at this point it at feels like speculative garbage. Brain scans aren't as interesting (yet) as our actual perception.

>neuro-science

>Ywn suck on young Blondie's perfect tits

get out of my head god dam

>tfw you remember that people used to be so medium-obsessed when it came to the internet that simply posting a comment saying "LOL" in response to a serious question was perfectly acceptable not even 10 years ago

Enjoy your ADD, dimwits.

LOL

is there such a thing as medium-obssession?

Sure, but why is it so bad to have a short attention span? Perhaps the age of mass literacy artificially extended our attention spans and they are just returning to the norm. Interacting with diverse visual stimuli is closer to the natural human state than sitting hunched over little squiggles of ink for hours at a time.

And why is returning to primitive modes of thinking beneficial, shouldn't we try to go past that?

tl;dr

They say don't judge a book by its cover but it looks like pseudo-intellectual garbage.

My point is that a longer or shorter attention span doesn't really matter either way and that technology has messed with the mind plenty before so there is no use in fretting over this.

You can learn much better and more with a longer attention span, so I'd say it does matter that it's fucking your attention span. Of course if you really care you can lengthen your attention span through meditation or having some damn self control, so in a sense it won't matter to anyone who cares about having a long attention span, just that most normies will get fucked.

In my own experience, a longer attention span has been associated with peace of mind. I don't think it's an accident that meditation is about cultivating attention. But it also depends on what you want to use your mind for. If you work with computers, the twitchy style of thought the internet encourages, in which you can switch smoothly from one thing to another, can be a boon. But if you're trying to become a writer or a college professor, and you can't sit in a chair in a quiet room and read for a few hours, that's a problem.

Even in computer science careers (what I assume you meant by working with computers) you need a good attention span to learn new concepts and consider how to implement a solution as well as actually writing the code. The only time fast switching would be beneficial there would be if you just want to be a codemonkey and slap shit down. Even in activities that require fast switching, at least for physical action where reaction times matter, a few studies have shown that meditation practitioners have better reaction times compared to control groups. I can't really think of any downsides to cultivating the ability to hold your attention as it even seems to improve the ability to switch quickly, and even if it doesn't I'm sure meditation doesn't make it worse.

I liked the book alot. I don't know why he ends the book saying he doesn't know if he could live without whatever gadget he mentioned at the end. I know he was being tongue and cheek, but I felt there should have been a more dystopian ending for more gravitas.

And he's right. The internet was created for us to be constantly overstimulated. For us to click from page to page in a haze of stimulation for more ad revenue. Pretty sad, and true

You can tell Carr isn't a genius, but he's definitely intelligent and well read. And sincere.

I can give you my subjective reason.

When I have a short attention span, when I am especially affected by the internet and technology, in a mental haze, I feel a general mental malaise and melancholy. It's like a background noise. I just feel downright ill at ease. It's depressing. And makes me want to kill myself.

He addresses this in the book. The literary mind gave us the enlightenment, the age of reason, the age of art, the age of philosophy

It's good shit

I think it's true you can't live without much of this technology nowadays, but more due to the way it's changed the social framework; you can always try minimizing your use of it. I feel the internet was also not originally created for that purpose since it was originally for sharing research between universities and then more static home pages as it was given to the public. The perversion of that has come more from the money to be had as social media companies have to exploit people's weaknesses to stay relevant.

I'm fairly sure shorter attention spans are linked to higher anxiety somehow. I've been there myself and I know the pervasive feeling of needing to 'keep up' with everything makes one feel pretty shitty. I know a few people who've wound up in therapy and it always seems to be the ones with an over-dependency on social media.

I personally decided to stop going on social media myself at the tail end of last year and I swear it's made my life more peaceful.

expand it pls

But you'll notice, every single post here is around three lines. The handful that are more are just skipped over.

The real concern in the shallows is that the internet is actually changing the way we think, not just social media feeding itself, but rather we can't think in long form, can't work in much more than memes.

How would one go about regaining a lost attention span? Has anyone succeeded in doing so without resorting to amphetamines?

inb4

> just have willpower bro
> just exercise self-control dude

Yes.

>What are Veeky Forums's thoughts on nicholas carr's the shallows?
A stupid book for stupid people who want an excuse for their stupidity. I regularly spend all day on the computer and have no difficulty reading books I'm interested in.

Shitposting has no power over me.

Everything described by other anons in this thread perfectly describes me. There's little more I can add, my short attention span makes me permanently anxious and I find nearly impossible to 'relax' and not feel either agitated or guilty.

But I want to ask, how normal and widespread do you think this is? I feel like everyone my age is addicted to their phone, but I don't feel like everyone is unhappy about it as I am - but maybe I just don't know because I can't see inside their brain. I have friends who have expressed similar concerns but they already have quite similar personality types to me. For want of a better, less pretentious term, does this shortening of attention span affect 'normies' in the same way? Do you think this unhappiness is a common phenomenon here on Veeky Forums specifically because Veeky Forums attracts unhappy people (or maybe turns people unhappy) or do you think everyone (including 'normies') is unhappy and they're just not letting on?

I feel the same way as you re feeling this way & also feeling like nobody my age feels this way. I think this thread shows that a lot of people (the guy above you excluded lol) are in this situation. At the same time though many people simply arent interested in reading challenging books anymore, so its not an issue for them. For young people who do get pleasure from reading literature, but are also addicted to the internet, we can feel pulled in two directions. But I think a lot of people are our age are pulled in only one direction (toward the internet, tv) and dont much mind. They accept it as the way things are nowadays. Which is fine, I think, not everybody has to read literature. But for those who know they enjoy literature when they can get into it, but enjoy the internet too, it can be a struggle.

I want to kiss Rei

Meditation can improve your attention span and make you happier. Also, the things associated with internet/smartphone addiction - not getting enough sleep, not moving enough, not going out enough - lead to unhappiness.

She doesn't want to kiss you.

true huh
I cannot physically 'Netflix binge' a tv show. Even if it is a show that I enjoy, I feel like I am wasting my time after only one episode. I get anxious that I am not being productive enough. But its more than just guilt - because plenty of people enjoy binge watching tv as exactly that, a guilty pleasure - its more than that, its a literal physical anxiety in my body.

It has taken me 3 years to get 6 seasons into Mad Men and I bloody love that show.

I know.

I know this feeling to an extent, though I'm unsure if it's necessarily related to attention span length. Seems like what workaholics have; possibly rooted in guilt from the way your parents would remark on your activities. I think trying to realize how important downtime is for your brain can help a bit.

explain it then

Yeah, accepting downtime is important. I used to feel the same feels as the feels that user described but I've since rescinded them. I'd honestly rather play a vidyo game than watch Netflix but hey-ho; feels good not to be stressed out all the motherfucking time.

Productivity != creativity.

>I think trying to realize how important downtime is for your brain can help a bit.

Yes, it frees cortisol

youtube.com/watch?v=ZWI4_Oe-Qbs

I've been interested in the idea of exploring literary hypertext. People jut point to Homestuck which I don't know much about but have little mind to engage in.

Does anyone have an example of a literary hypertext?

i'm waiting

Even though it was written before the internet, I'm convinced that Wittgenstein's Mistress is essentially structured like a series of hyperlinks.

Dorst's Merlin as well, if you can read Deutsch.

Infinite Jest?

yes

Very impressed that you managed a 2.1 kb fucking picture user, please delete