Finally, The Book is Over

Meagan Cox

Now that the book is over, I have decided to make the last blog entry for this class as a collection of my personal opinions, thoughts, and ideas of the overall concept of Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows. As the class has gone on, I have noticed that the general consensus of the class seems to be that much of what Nicholas Carr wrote about in his book can be viewed as controversial, and the class seemed to disagree with a lot of the things Carr had to say. I am one of those people; for I often disagreed with what Carr had to say. I have to admit though, that I somewhat agree with what I took to be his final point- that the internet is not a bad thing, if it is used in moderation. However, his final point seemed to contradict the rest of his book, for while his conclusion seemed to be that he felt somewhat neutral about the use of the internet, many of the points that he made seemed to be strongly against it.

To me, Carr often exaggerated things in his book. He took simple ideas, and made big deals out of them. It seemed as though Carr spent a lot of time saying that the internet was going to take over the world through most of the book, so it sort of came as a surprise to me that in the end, he sort of summed up the whole thing by saying that it is fine in moderation. Nicholas Carr spent a lot of time in his book describing ways that the internet has taken over our daily lives- from the creation of online books, to the introduction of search engines such as Google, and in my opinion, he overstated these ideas, and made them seem much more powerful than they actually are. Though I realize that the internet has quickly become a large part of our lives, I definitely do not think it is going to completely take over our lives if we do not let it.

            In addition to exaggerating, Carr over-generalizes a lot in his book. He seems to make it seem as though everyone on this earth is addicted to the internet. While there are, in fact, many people who are probably addicted to the internet, there are also many people who are not, and there are just as many people who are neutral. Carr seems to overlook this fact, and focus solely on those who are fascinated by the internet.

            The fact is that the internet is only as powerful as we enable it to be. Though Carr seemed to personify it, the internet is far from human, and it does not control us. Yes, the internet can draw users in, and make things like researching easier, but it is humans who are in control of the internet, not the other way around. After all, it is humans who created the internet, it is humans who monitor the internet, and it is humans who choose to take part in the internet. I am so glad that this book is over.