
The Shallows
What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
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Narrated by:
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Richard Powers
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By:
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Nicholas Carr
About this listen
The best-selling author of The Big Switch returns with an explosive look at technology’s effect on the mind.
“Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question in an Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the internet’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply?
Now, Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration yet published of the internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences. Weaving insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and history into a rich narrative, The Shallows explains how the internet is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher. A gripping story of human transformation played out against a backdrop of technological upheaval, The Shallows will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.
©2010 Nicholas Carr (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Error in recording
- By D. Cassidy on 04-30-15
By: Neil Postman
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Alone Together
- Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
- By: Sherry Turkle
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Consider Facebook - it's human contact, only easier to engage with and easier to avoid. Developing technology promises closeness. Sometimes it delivers, but much of our modern life leaves us less connected with people and more connected to simulations of them. In Alone Together, MIT technology and society professor Sherry Turkle explores the power of our new tools and toys to dramatically alter our social lives.
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Depressing narrator
- By Spindler on 12-21-13
By: Sherry Turkle
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Digital Minimalism
- Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
- By: Cal Newport
- Narrated by: Will Damron, Cal Newport
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Minimalism is the art of knowing how much is just enough. Digital minimalism applies this idea to our personal technology. It's the key to living a focused life in an increasingly noisy world. In this timely and enlightening book, the best-selling author of Deep Work introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives.
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Disappointing
- By Aaron on 04-15-19
By: Cal Newport
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The Attention Merchants
- The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads
- By: Tim Wu
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In nearly every moment of our waking lives, we face a barrage of advertising enticements, branding efforts, sponsored social media, commercials, and other efforts to harvest our attention. Over the last century, few times or spaces have remained uncultivated by the "attention merchants", contributing to the distracted, unfocused tenor of our times. Tim Wu argues that this is not simply the byproduct of recent inventions, but the end result of more than a century's growth and expansion in the industries that feed on human attention.
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It's Been Sold
- By Mr. Ess on 10-24-16
By: Tim Wu
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The Disappearance of Childhood
- By: Neil Postman
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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This modern classic of social history and media traces the precipitous decline of childhood in America today, and the corresponding threat to the notion of adulthood. Deftly marshaling a vast array of research, Neil Postman suggests that childhood is a recent invention. But now the division between child and adult is eroding under the barrage of television, which turns the adult secrets of sex and violence into entertainment and pitches news and advertising at the intellectual level of 10-year-olds.
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An incredible essay on history, education, and media
- By fambram on 05-25-19
By: Neil Postman
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The Internet of Us
- Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data
- By: Michael P. Lynch
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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With far-reaching implications, this urgent treatise promises to revolutionize our understanding of what it means to be human in the digital age. We used to say "seeing is believing"; now googling is believing. With 24/7 access to nearly all of the world's information at our fingertips, we no longer trek to the library or the encyclopedia shelf in search of answers. We just open our browsers, type in a few keywords, and wait for the information to come to us.
By: Michael P. Lynch
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Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
- By: Jaron Lanier
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 4 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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You might have trouble imagining life without your social media accounts, but virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier insists that we’re better off without them. In his important new audiobook, Lanier, who participates in no social media, offers powerful and personal reasons for all of us to leave these dangerous online platforms behind before it’s too late. Lanier remains a tech optimist, so while demonstrating the evil that rules social media business models today, he also envisions a humanistic setting for social networking that can direct us towards richer and fuller way of living and connecting.
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Hatred for Trump Interferes with book
- By Maggie Lawrence on 06-23-20
By: Jaron Lanier
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Attention Span
- A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity
- By: Gloria Mark
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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We spend an average of just 47 seconds on any screen before shifting our attention. It takes 25 minutes to bring our attention back to a task after an interruption. And we interrupt ourselves more than we're interrupted by others. In Attention Span, psychologist Gloria Mark reveals these and more surprising results from her decades of research into how technology affects our attention
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Very good listen.
- By E. W. Totel on 01-25-23
By: Gloria Mark
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Stolen Focus
- Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again
- By: Johann Hari
- Narrated by: Johann Hari
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In the United States, teenagers can focus on one task for only sixty-five seconds at a time, and office workers average only three minutes. Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding that constantly switching from device to device and tab to tab was a diminishing and depressing way to live. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions—even abandoning his phone for three months—but nothing seemed to work. So Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention—and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.
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Needs a little sharpening
- By LEE on 02-01-22
By: Johann Hari
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Deep Work
- Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
- By: Cal Newport
- Narrated by: Jeff Bottoms
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Master one of our economy’s most rare skills and achieve groundbreaking results with this “exciting” audiobook (Daniel H. Pink) from an “exceptional” author (New York Times Book Review). Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep Work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship.
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Blocking off time each day to work without distractions will make you more productive
- By M.J. on 11-17-16
By: Cal Newport
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The Chaos Machine
- The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World
- By: Max Fisher
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 15 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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From a New York Times investigative reporter, this “authoritative and devastating account of the impacts of social media” (New York Times Book Review) tracks the high-stakes inside story of how Big Tech’s breakneck race to drive engagement—and profits—at all costs fractured the world, and is “an essential book for our times” (Ezra Klein).
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First few chapters were good. The rest was bashing all right wing politics.
- By Brandon Bastianelli on 09-19-22
By: Max Fisher
What listeners say about The Shallows
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- SethF
- 09-17-18
Interesting, but has a misleading subtitle
First, let me clarify my headline. Carr's data is not out of date, it's the topic that is (or perhaps subjects that are). If you're seeking to discover "what the internet is doing to our brains," you will not be disappointed. We must, however, know that he is writing about what the internet is doing to OUR brains, not the brains of the youth (or even some older "digital natives"). Research is showing that the youth are "wired differently," and while interesting, this book does not apply to the young generations.
I appreciated that Carr does not make judgments about the positive or negatives associated with these "changes" - I probably would have liked this book far less, had he done so (following the flaw in the description). I perceive that most listening to this book are seeking validation of their own feelings about the internet's effect on humanity. You will be presented with a large amount of information, and left to make your own decisions.
I actually found this book interesting, but I have rated it so low for the performance. I drive while I listen, and this performance was the slowest, most drawn out and boring performance I have EVER listened to - so much so that I nearly quit the book. Instead, I listened at 1.5x speed, just to make it tolerable (but even then, it was questionable).
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- Greta Ann Herin
- 04-12-17
Interesting content, reader mispronounces terms and names.
The content of the book is interesting. The performance is fine, except for the chapter on neuroscience in which the reader mispronounces terms and names.
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- gorazd
- 03-26-16
Good book
Good story, thats what I needed to listen to. I will probably need to read it again to Understand it fully
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- Roger
- 05-12-23
Great. Extremely challenging
This was exceptional. My wife keeps asking, “What are you going to change?” Unfortunately lifestyle change is one of the hardest. But this book gives some positive examples on how to do it. Great book. Will Listen again for sure.
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- DJ
- 12-21-20
1%
1% of this book is very interesting, provocative and eye opening. The author briefly addresses the wide spread distraction of society caused by technology and how our brains arent capable of keeping up with the flow of information we take in on a regular basis. As a result, our memory suffers, we dont retain new information, our brains have begun to crave multitasking and our attention spans have gotten much shorter. I was hoping this book would be a deeper dive into this topic, like the subtitle states. However, the other 99% of the book is an assortment of mildly related digressions and history lessons that are largely unnecessary and in some cases, completely without a point. This is ironic considering the topic of the book. I gave it 3 stars because the 1% portion was very good. If you can find a summary online somewhere (again, ironically), that will be a much better use of your time. Also, it is written over ten years ago, so the technology references are very dated.
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- Kacy
- 10-21-10
Definitely Not Shallow
This book really opened my eyes to how the online world has affected so much of the way I think, act and live. While interesting, there is a lot of human history covered into this book that at times is cumbersome to listen to. He goes into a good deal of scientific things also when talking about the brain processes that I didn't really hold on to, but the message is clear.
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- Anonymous User
- 07-14-18
Wish it were abridged
The chapters 10 and 11 answered the actual question, I thought. 13 is also worth a listen.
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- EDH
- 11-07-18
Great research, but too much extraneous info
Overall I learned a lot from this book, however my only issue is that I feel Carr went on too many irrelevant tangents that I did not care for. Some examples of this were the chapters on Larry Page, history of writing, etc.
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- Darling Family 3
- 08-13-21
Somewhat underwhelming references and studies
I agree with the overall sentiment, although mostly from a gut feeling, of this book. It’s hard to take criticism of digital/online media when a number of the referenced studies were published online via blogs. The irony is not lost on me in regards to listening to this book on an app and reviewing for future listeners instead of suggesting the paperback.
SPOILER ALERT
I was completely gutted when the author, after hours of listening to how devastating the technology is to our intake and processing of information, admitted to continuing a fully digital life after preaching the benefits of luddite “old school” learning.
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- Rajiv
- 05-05-22
The Internet is shrinking the brains of people
Where de advice: electronics are a meant for work or necessity. They are not for pleasure in addition to work and necessity.
TV shrunk many people‘s brains. As if the Internet is not doing worse.
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