I
have read The Shallows by Nicholas
Carr and I do feel as though he may have too much of an antagonistic view on the,
many of his concerns are valid and reasonable. Carr’s main argument states that
the Internet serves to be too much of a distraction for our minds to be able to
comprehend and stay focused with the task that brought us to use the Internet. He
puts much of the blame on the advertisements and links that lead to another
web page as the leading force of such distraction we face.
Within Chapter Seven: The Jugglers Mind, Carr explains that
every time we see an ad or a link, our brain unconsciously contemplates as for
whether or not we should click on it. On this topic I do agree with what Carr
had presented, for I even find myself distracted when I go to the Internet as
there are many links that sound much more interesting, especially when on YouTube.
Throughout the book though, I often felt as though that Carr did not take in
all factors of a situation into consideration. He mentions that office workers
are often distracted with the checking of their email about thirty to Forty
times in just only one hour, breaking their concentration and progress with the
work that they have. While I am not denying that checking ones e-mail that many
times does seem a lot and does have some level of distraction, having a dad who
works in an office, I also know that many times, those e-mails contain
important and much needed information that could affect their work.
On the topic of advertisements that litter much of the
Internet, I do not see any near future improvement to the problem it presents to
the Internet, as Carr explains in Chapter Eight: The Church of Google. Google
is built around the involvement of ads as their source of profit; this means
that their business model is to get us clicking onto ads as much as possible. This
has brought much success to the point that they even allow for other websites to
use their model of advertisement so they too can earn a profit. The issue here
is that the of this model comes at our expense as even if we know about the harmfulness
that they bring, will still fall victim to being distracted as we continue to
go and use the Internet.
I completely agree with your statements. The internet has become very distracting and a major part of our daily lives. However, it is not the distraction that makes the internet a problem of the present and future but it’s the usefulness and convenience. Although the internet is distracting, it has not need to change because it gives us instant access to what we want. Even Carr hinted that you cannot stop the effect the Internet has on us. It is the overwhelming positives that make the Internet a strong force.
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