Computing The Cost

Nicholas Carr On How The Internet Is Rewiring Our Brains

Anyone who has spent a few hours on the Internet understands how reading a single paragraph can lead to a multimedia journey so far-reaching you forget what you originally went online to look up. Nicholas Carr — author of last July’s Atlantic cover story, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” — believes the distracted nature of Web surfing is reducing our capacity for deep contemplation and reflection. He began developing his theory when he realized that, after years of online information gathering, he had trouble reading a book or a magazine. As he puts it, “I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. . . . I’m not thinking the way I used to think.”

Growing up in a small town in central Connecticut in the seventies, Carr couldn’t have imagined he’d someday make a career of critiquing computer technology. He read a great deal as a boy and entered Dartmouth College with hopes of becoming a writer. He graduated in 1981 with a degree in English literature and spent a year working as an editor and playing in a punk-rock band before he entered a graduate program in English literature at Harvard University. The theoretical focus of his courses failed to captivate him, however, and Carr soon realized that he didn’t want to become a professor. He got his master’s degree and left.

Carr and his new wife had a baby on the way, so he took an editorial position at a management-consulting firm. He ended up staying twelve years and getting an education in business, economics, and the blossoming field of information technology, or it. In 1997 he became senior editor of the Harvard Business Review. It was the height of the dot-com boom, and Carr spent nearly six years editing articles about business strategy and it. Then in 2003 he wrote an article for the Review titled “IT Doesn’t Matter,” arguing that as computers have become almost universal, they no longer provide a competitive advantage to companies. The piece aroused much interest — and contempt; Microsoft ceo Steve Ballmer called it “hogwash.” Harvard Business School Press offered Carr a book contract, and Does IT Matter? was published in 2004. That success led to a second book, The Big Switch (W.W. Norton & Co.), about “cloud computing” — providing computing software over the Internet, like electric power sent out over a grid. While writing The Big Switch, Carr became interested in the social and cultural implications of the Internet, which led to his Atlantic cover story and the book he’s currently working on, tentatively titled The Shallows: Mind, Memory, and Media in an Age of Instant Information.

As for all those years studying literature, forty-nine-year-old Carr has no regrets. In fact, he believes learning to deconstruct poems and stories trained him to think analytically and led him to where he is today. Carr’s methodical mind — the “Google effect” notwithstanding — has given him an impressive ability to dissect the ever-expanding cyberworld. He blogs at www.roughtype.com and recently moved from New England to the Colorado Rockies to spend more time outdoors, hiking, fly-fishing, and skiing — and deepening his ability to be contemplative.

Cooper: You’ve quoted Richard Foreman, author of the play The Gods Are Pounding My Head, who says we are turning into “pancake people.”

Carr: We used to have an intellectual ideal that we could contain within ourselves the whole of civilization. It was very much an ideal — none of us actually fulfilled it — but there was this sense that, through wide reading and study, you could have a depth of knowledge and could make unique intellectual connections among the pieces of information stored within your memory. Foreman suggests that we might be replacing that model — for both intelligence and culture — with a much more superficial relationship to information in which the connections are made outside of our own minds through search engines and hyperlinks. We’ll become “pancake people,” with wide access to information but no intellectual depth, because there’s little need to contain information within our heads when it’s so easy to find with a mouse click or two.

Cooper: In your Atlantic article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” you suggest that using the Internet has actually lessened your ability to concentrate while reading. What led you to this conclusion?

Carr: I was having trouble sitting down and immersing myself in a book, something that used to be totally natural to me. When I read, my mind wanted to behave the way it behaves when I’m online: jumping from one piece of information to another, clicking on links, checking e-mail, and generally being distracted. I had a growing feeling that the Internet was programming me to do these things and pushing on me a certain mode of thinking: on the one hand, distracted; on the other hand, efficient and able to move quickly from one piece of information to another. In the article, I focused on Google because it’s the dominant presence on the Net — at least, when it comes to gathering information. It provides a window into how the Internet is imposing its own intellectual ethic on its users at both a technological and an economic level.

Because Google makes money based on how many ads we see and how often we click on them and jump to another page, it has a strong interest in getting us to move around the Web as quickly as possible. In some ways the nightmare scenario for a company like Google is that we slow down and spend a lot of time with one source of information.

Even aside from Internet business strategies, this tendency toward distraction is built into the Net through the use of hyperlinks and search engines, and I believe it’s beginning to influence not simply how we gather information but also how we think.

Cooper: In the September 2008 issue of Wired David Wolman answers your question “Is Google making us stupid?” with “No, but it makes a handy scapegoat for an inability to cope with information overload.” He goes on to say, “The explosion of knowledge represented by the Internet and abetted by all sorts of digital technologies makes us more productive and gives us the opportunity to become smarter, not dumber.” What’s your response?

Carr: There have been two general criticisms of my article. One is that the phenomenon that I write about — the loss of the ability to concentrate and be contemplative — simply isn’t happening. The other is that it’s happening, but what we gain is much greater than what we lose. I think the Wired piece is more in the latter camp: this wealth of information is so beneficial, the argument goes, that it doesn’t matter if our brains change.

I guess it comes down to what you value about human intelligence and, by extension, human culture. Do you believe that intelligence is a matter of tapping into huge amounts of information as fast as possible — being “more productive,” as the Wired writer says — or do you think intelligence means stepping back from that information, thinking about it, and drawing your own conclusions in a calm, thoughtful way? My own feeling is that I’d rather have less information and more thoughtfulness. I certainly want information, but information isn’t an end unto itself. Human intelligence is the ability to make sense of that information. 

Cooper: Is there any real evidence that the Internet is “rewiring” our brains?

Carr: There’s certainly a lot of evidence that the brain readily adapts to experience — that our neural circuits are “plastic,” as scientists say. And we’re starting to see direct evidence that Internet use alters brain function. There was a fascinating study done in 2008 by Gary Small, who heads the UCLA Memory and Aging Research Center and recently published a book called iBrain. He and two of his colleagues scanned the brains of two dozen people as they searched the Internet: half the subjects lacked online experience, and the other half were experienced Web users. The researchers found very different patterns of brain activity between the two groups. The subjects with little experience on the Internet showed activity in the language, memory, and visual centers of the brain, which is typical of people who are reading. The experienced Web surfers, on the other hand, had more activity in the decision-making areas at the front of the brain. Interestingly, after five consecutive days of Web surfing, the brain activity of the “inexperienced” group began to match the activity of the experienced Web users. That indicates that the brain adapts very quickly to Net use, just as it does to other repeated stimuli.

Now, there’s good news and bad news here. The good news is that, if you’re older, using the Net may help keep you mentally sharp. It “exercises” the brain in the way that, as Dr. Small observed, solving crossword puzzles does. On the other hand, neurology experiments demonstrate that decision-making consumes a lot of your mental resources, leaving less available for other modes of thinking. That may be why it’s so hard to read deeply when we’re online — our brains literally become overloaded. Imagine trying to read a book while simultaneously working on a crossword puzzle. That’s the intellectual environment of the Web.

Cooper: Do the different areas of activity that show up on the scan necessarily mean the brain is being “rewired”?

Carr: If everybody in the study had shown the same pattern of brain activity from the start, that would have told us that this is just the way your brain works when you surf the Web. But because the patterns differed between experienced and inexperienced users, and because they changed for the inexperienced group as they used the Web more, it means the brain is adapting. People used to think that after childhood your brain was basically hard-wired, but we know today that even the adult brain is very plastic. Throughout our lives our brains adapt to the way we gather and process information. Performing an action over and over changes the brain’s circuitry. The new firing patterns of neurons become more stable and push aside older patterns. If you give up performing an action, then neural circuits formerly dedicated to it get weaker and are eventually used for other activities.

Cooper: So this rewiring isn’t something unique to Google or the Internet.

Carr: That’s right. Anything we do on a regular basis rewires the brain. There’s a saying among neuroscientists that “neurons that fire together, wire together.” When you practice a certain skill, the circuits get stronger, and the area of your brain dedicated to performing the skill gets larger.

What that means is that, as the Internet becomes our universal medium for gathering information, we’re training our brains to take in information in the way the Internet supplies it — that is, with an emphasis on speed and with continual distractions. We’ve seen this with previous intellectual technologies like the alphabet, the clock, and the printing press: new modes of intelligence come into being that stress different aspects of our brain’s functioning. Some people would argue that, with the current change, we’re gaining a great deal, because we have access to all this information. And for most of us the obvious benefits of being online overwhelm any fears and concerns. This has been particularly true with young people who’ve grown up with this new technology. Because it’s become so natural, they don’t pay attention to what they might be losing. They might not even be aware of it. You don’t worry about losing something you never knew you had in the first place.

Cooper: What do you personally do to address the negative effects of the Internet on your brain?

Carr: I’m trying to put some limits on my Internet and e-mail use, but that’s not always possible. There are broad social and economic changes underway that reward Internet use. If you cherish the ability to concentrate deeply and be reflective, you need to set aside time to read and think every day, so that those circuits in your brain don’t get erased.

Cooper: You’ve been called “the technology world’s public enemy No. 1.” How accurate is this characterization?

Carr: [Laughter.] That’s a phrase that was used in Newsweek. Back in 2003, while I was working for the Harvard Business Review, I wrote an article called “IT Doesn’t Matter,” which basically argued that computers aren’t providing businesses a competitive advantage anymore, because they’re so commonplace. That ruffled a lot of feathers in the computer industry. Since then I’ve broadened my critique and examined my own personal relationship to computers, which has been one of mixed feelings. On the one hand, I’ve always been more of a technophile than a technophobe. I got my first personal computer, a Mac Plus, in the eighties and have been an enthusiastic adopter of new computer technologies since then. I certainly appreciate the way computers and the Internet have made my work easier. Yet over time I also feel more and more resistant to their charms and more suspicious of the negative effects they might be having on all of us.

Cooper: Do you think computers have harmed our relationship with nature?

Carr: I certainly think they’ve gotten in the way of our relationship to nature. As we increasingly connect with the world through computer screens, we’re removing ourselves from direct sensory contact with nature. In other words, we’re learning to substitute symbols of reality for reality itself. I think that’s particularly true for children who’ve grown up surrounded by screens from a young age. You could argue that this isn’t necessarily something new, that it’s just a continuation of what we saw with other electronic media like radio or tv. But I do think it’s an amplification of those trends.

Cooper: What about the interactivity of the Internet? Isn’t it a step above the passivity that television engenders?

Carr: The interactivity of the Net brings a lot of benefits, which is one of the main reasons we spend so much time online. It lets us communicate with one another more efficiently, and it gives us a powerful new means of sharing our opinions, pursuing our interests and hobbies with others, and disseminating our creative works through, for instance, blogs, social networks, YouTube, and photo-publishing sites. Those benefits are real and shouldn’t be denigrated. But I’m wary of drawing sharp distinctions between “active” and “passive” media. Are we really “passive” when we’re immersed in a great novel or a great movie or listening to a great piece of music? I don’t think so. I think we’re deeply engaged, and our intellect is extremely active. When we view or read or listen to something meaningful, when we devote our full attention to it, we broaden and deepen our minds. The danger with interactive media is that they draw us away from quieter and lonelier pursuits. Interactivity is compelling because its rewards are so easy and immediate, but they’re often also superficial.

Cooper: How has public perception of computers changed over the years?

Carr: The public has always been of two minds when it comes to computers. Back when companies and governments were installing the first mainframes, there was a fear that we might lose our humanity and be turned into strings of numbers processed by machines. So in the sixties, students not only burned their draft cards; they also folded, spindled, and mutilated ibm computer cards to protest the “institutional” machines that they feared might enslave them in some way.

At the same time, some in the counterculture became enthusiastic about computers as personal tools that would not control us but liberate us by giving us more power to create and communicate with others. In other words, computers could be a weapon against corporate and governmental control. That idea was central to the early personal-computing movement, and it lay behind the formation of, say, Apple Computer.

Since the sixties, the fear that the computer might threaten our humanity has become submerged, and the view of computers as useful tools has grown more dominant. I don’t think, though, that people view their pcs as countercultural tools anymore. They’re mainstream tools, and they’re used as much to connect with corporations and institutions as for any other purpose. They’ve become an integral part of consumer society rather than an alternative to it. I worry that, as we’ve become entranced by the bounties that the pc and the Net deliver, we’ve blinded ourselves to their role as controlling technologies.

Cooper: What do you mean by a “controlling technology”?

Carr: Computers were originally developed for military applications — for figuring out the trajectories of bombs and missiles — and then they were adapted for business use. Their fundamental purpose was to automate and control processes that had once been done by hand. Soon the steps a worker took in his or her job were largely determined by the software of the computer system. Computer networks also provide a great way for companies to monitor employees and customers. Because computers become more useful as you put more information into them, the idea of privacy is antithetical to the ongoing expansion of their use.

Cooper: Speaking of privacy, can you talk about Tom Owad’s experiment?

Carr: Tom Owad writes a blog about Apple computers, and a while back he decided to do an experiment using just his home computer and information that’s available through Amazon.com. Amazon allows buyers to set up “wish lists” of items in which they’re interested. Owad realized that these lists provide a window into an individual’s views, because what you read or buy says a lot about you. He also realized that you can download the data in the lists fairly easily and analyze it to discover patterns.

So he downloaded many thousands of these personal wish lists, which are often attached to demographic information like addresses, birthdays, and anniversaries — enough for him to do an online people search and attach specific wish lists to individuals. He was able, for example, to create a Google map of people interested in George Orwell’s novel 1984. The experiment revealed that we expose ourselves online in many ways without being conscious of it. And it’s quite easy, not only for an individual like Owad but for a government or corporation, to mine this information and get insight into who we are and what we think.

Cooper: Let’s say people were more conscious of this. Do you think they’d resist?

Carr: If you ask people whether they’re concerned about the ability of the government or corporations to gather information about them online, they’ll say yes. But if you look at how they behave online, they don’t display much fear of exposing themselves. What that says about people — and it’s true for most of us — is that we will readily forgo our privacy in exchange for convenient and useful services, particularly if they’re free. That’s a trade-off you make all the time on the Internet. Even if people were more conscious of how this information might be exploited, I doubt most would change their behavior.

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