The Juggler's Brain, by Nicholas Carr

After reading The Juggler's Brain, I cannot help but pass along some of its major thoughts.  I have copied and pasted most of the quotations straight from it.  A couple of Carr's ideas relate to topics I have mentioned in previous posts in this blog, but I will refrain from hyperlinking this time.

A few relevant points:

1) "The depth of our intelligence (I would add 'knowledge') hinges on our ability to transfer information from working memory to long-term memory and weave it into conceptual schemas."

2) "Those elements that we are able to hold in working memory will ... quickly vanish unless we are able to refresh them by rehearsal."

3) "When the [information load in our working memory] (see a previous post on working memory in this blog) exceeds our mind's ability to store and process the information... we're unable to retain the information or to draw connections with the information already stored in our long-term  memory."  The more complex the material we're trying to learn, the more difficult it becomes.

Carr's main point is that intense use of the internet is rewiring our brains, so we are gaining new skills, and losing others.

WHAT WE GAIN

• Neural circuits devoted to scanning, skimming, and multitasking are expanding and strengthening.
• We exercise the brain for certain cognitive skills: lower-lever functions, such as hand-eye coordination, reflex responses and the processing of visual cues.
• We gain widespread and sophisticated development of visual-spatial skills.
• We can speedily locate, categorize, and assess disparate bits of information in a variety of forms > functions similar to those performed by computers.
• We learn to be skillful at a superficial level.

WHAT WE LOSE

• Neural circuits used for reading and thinking deeply, with sustained concentration, are eroding.
• We become easily distracted by environmental stimuli > it becomes harder to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information.
• We have less control over the contents of our working memory.
• We are less able to maintain concentration and focus.
• Our ability to learn suffers and our understanding remains shallow
• We lose deep learning and thinking.
• We lose calm, linear thought.
• The deep processing that underpins mindful knowledge acquisition, inductive analysis, critical thinking, imagination, and reflection is weakening.

The problem with hypertext: "evaluating links and navigating a path through them... involves mentally demanding problem-solving tasks that are extraneous to the act of reading itself.  Deciphering hypertext substantially increases readers' cognitive load and hence weakens their ability to comprehend and retain what they're reading...  Research continues to show that people who read linear text comprehend more, remember more, and learn more than those who read texts peppered with links."

Carr's CONCLUSION

The more our brains are being rewired as a result of heavy internet use, the more we process information rather than processing thought, the more we become "likely to rely on conventional ideas and solutions rather than challenging them with original lines of thought."

I believe that this is something to seriously worry about.