The Final Chapter

          In the final chapter of the book The Shallows, author Nicholas Carr summarizes the points that he has made throughout the book. Overall, he explains how me seem to shape technology and how technology seems to shape us. Throughout the entire book there were many things that Carr would infer that I found myself disagreeing with. He was very blunt with his opinions and sometimes pushed them onto the reader. However, in this last chapter I found myself understanding his points better, and agreeing with them a little more. In this chapter he seems to be a little softer in his opinion and explanations of opinions. 

           There was a quote that stood out to me in this chapter because it was the part of Carr’s opinion that I agree with most. Carr states that “Every tool imposes limitations even as it opens possibilities. The more we use it, the more we mold ourselves to its form and function… McLahan wrote that our tools end up ‘numbing‘ whatever part of our body they ‘amplify’”. I feel that this quote could summarize The Shallows in a positive way despite the fact that I was disagreeing with Carr so much. Carr used examples of technologies like the power loom. When the power loom was first invented people became less dependent of people who could make cloth and more dependent on the power loom. This was because the power loom was a faster, easier and more efficient was of creating cloth. The same thing has happened with the new technology of the internet. People can read books online, therefore people are not as dependent on hard copies of books anymore. Just like any other technology has done to humans in the past, the internet is having an effect on our daily activities and our mind functions. 

           I believe that Nicholas Carr wrote this book in order to show people how society is changing due to the internet. Before I read this last chapter, I felt that the message Carr was basically trying to get across was to stop using the internet completely because it was evil. However, now I see what his point really was. He wanted people to be aware of the changes taking place in our society due to the use of the internet. His intentions were not to have people eliminate the internet from their lives, that would be absurd. He only wanted to help people see what he saw was changing. As a society that can depend on the internet, Carr feels that we should not depend on the internet so blindly. We should move forward, continuing to use the internet as a tool for learning and communication, but to also continuously asking questions about how the internet is changing us. If the internet is changing us at all, we should at least be aware of the reasons why and/or if those changes are positive and necessary. As Carr says, “In the end it is not our becoming, but what we become” (Carr 222). 

- Kaitlin MacKinnon