One of my favorite analogies in Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows comes on page 124, when Carr says, “Imagine filling a bathtub with a thimble; that’s the challenge involved in transferring information from working memory to long term memory… With the Net, we face many information faucets, all going full blast. Our little thimble overflows as we rush from one faucet to the next… what we do transfer is a jumble of drops from different faucets, not a continuous, coherent stream from one source.” I thought this quote accurately described how Twitter works. There are thousands of Twitter accounts dedicated solely to tweeting factoids and trivia. I follow several such accounts, because I find statistics and random facts to be interesting. However, after reading this passage from Carr, I came to realize how little of the information I actually retain. When I’m scrolling through my Twitter feed, being bombarded by hundreds of different thoughts, facts, opinions, emotions, and triviality, it’s difficult to sift through and find the worthwhile bits of information. I adopt the technique of “power-browsing and power-scanning” that Carr discusses on page 138. Because of this, I’ve stopped looking at Twitter at any point while I’m reading a book. After switching to that “power-browsing” form of reading, it’s difficult to change back into the deep-reading mind state of a book; I become antsy and distracted. Carr was right when he said, “We want to gather as much information as quickly as our eyes and fingers can move” (pg. 136), but he failed to include that we only retain a fraction of all that information.
Another section of Carr’s chapter on "The Juggler’s Brain" that I was able to connect with came on page 132: “frequent interruptions scatter our thoughts, weaken our memory, and make us tense and anxious. The more complex the train of thought we’re involved in, the greater the impairment the distractions cause.” I’ve found that, in order to accomplish any sort of productive deep thinking these days, I have to distance myself from my iPhone. I amaze myself at how much I can get done when my phone is in a different room. I think that stems from the societal pressures that accompany social media and texting. As Carr notes, “our social standing is, in one way or another, always at risk. The resulting self-consciousness—even, at times, fear—magnifies the intensity of our involvement with the medium” (p. 118). This defining characteristic of addiction holds true for most young adults and teenagers in our culture. It’s only after I’ve separated myself from my phone for a few hours that I can realize the frivolous and unnecessary nature of social media. The massive swarm of instant communication will continue to power forward, regardless of any one person’s involvement. For some reason, we feel so obligated to keep up with the incessant flow of triviality in everyone else’s lives, that it affects how we live our own. Carr said, “If [the young] stop sending messages, they risk becoming invisible” (pg. 118). I think it would have been more appropriate to say, “If they stop sending messages, they risk being left behind.” It’s a sad truth, but our generation has become deeply tangled in the Web. We’ve become so involved and concerned with other people’s lives that our own lives seem to take a backseat. I’m interested (and a little worried) to see how social norms evolve- or devolve- over the next decade or so.
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