The Jugglers Brain

In Nicholas Carr's book, The Shallows, in the Chapter titled "The Jugglers Brain" he quotes, “The Net provides a high-speed system for delivering responses and rewards-'positive reinforcements', in psychological terms-which encourage the repetition of both physical and mental actions" (p117). The internet has so many different aspects and is incorporated into so many technologies, ways of communications, forms of entertainment, research, etc. It's almost impossible not to us the internet in some form. These "positive reinforcements" that Carr mentions in his book is what makes the internet so addicting or seem so appealing to us. I agree with this statement.  We have so much going on in our minds, live, and surroundings and the Net adds to the commotion, although not all of it's distractions can be deemed negative. The Net is easy, pretty simple to figure out how to use, and most of the time convenient. The way I interpreted some of the "positive reinforcements" to be is things such as being able to easily connect through video-chatting, Facebook, and these social networking sites that connect you all around the world. It can provide entertainment such as YouTube, online videos, games sites, etc. You can use the internet for research, to look up the weather, look up the news, read articles, etc. There are so many things on the Net that help us and grab our attention, but sometimes it distracts us too much. Nicholas Carr quotes, "The Net seizes our attention only to scatter it" (p118). Often, I do find myself getting lost in the Net. Wasting time because there are so many different parts of the Net is easy. Sometimes, even if I go on the internet for a simple task such as checking the weather or checking email I somehow find myself ending up on another website or Facebook or something like that. Carr even goes so far to state that heavy use of the Internet causes actual neurological affects or changes in the brain. This statements makes sense to a certain degree. I think it relates a lot to why so many people feel so dependent on the internet or get distracted so easily, but theres always been debates about whether or not people are actually "addicted" to the internet. Carr talks about the differences between reading books versus online webpages. He states that there are different patterns of your brain by reading an online-text versus written-text. I personally, don't find much of a difference of reading a book online by using a Kindle, versus an actual written text. I would prefer to read a book over reading on online but I don't think it makes a difference whether its read online versus printed text. I can still find myself able to read a book without getting distract by my phone or my surroundings. Just recently, I read an entire book over the course of 2 days because I was unable to put it down and was completely engaged in the text.


-Chelsea Angelosanto