Are We Becoming Shallow?

In his book, "The Shallows," Nicholas Carr contends that the Internet, with its hyperlinks and constant interruptions, is robbing us of our ability to concentrate for extended periods of time.  This has an impact on many aspects of our lives, but nowhere more significantly than in our ability to read and reflect.

Carr supports his argument with brain research that demonstrates the impact that external stimuli and cognitive demands have on the neurological functioning of our brains.  Carr suggests that it took a great deal of time for humans to develop the deep reading skills that have proven so essential to our progress.  Indeed, Carr notes that it was the introduction of the book that made reading economical and convenient enough to allow people to engage in it for long periods of time.  This, in turn, trained our brains to concentrate on the written word and to reflect upon complex passages of text.

Today, according to Carr, most of what we read appears on a some type of screen.  The text is peppered with hyperlinks that entice us to click and surf.  Meanwhile, Twitter messages pop up on our screen, Skype lets us know that one of our friends has just come online and e-mail continues to grow in our ever-expanding in-box.  The Internet, Carr tells us, serves as a tool of distraction.  It encourages us to skim and to surf, rather than to read and reflect.

It would be easy to dismiss Nicholas Carr as a technophobe or Luddite.  To do so, however, would be a mistake.  His argument and concerns are valid and sincere.

Those who know me, know that I love to read.  I also embrace technology with an excitement that belies my age.  Yet, I have resisted purchasing an e-reader and continue to purchase hard cover books in which I highlight passages and make marginal notes.  I could, of course, do that and much more with an e-reader.  So why don't I?

Recently I read a book describing the work being done at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland.  Having very limited formal training in science or mathematics, I found the terms and concepts associated with high-energy particle physics to be a challenge to say the least.  So as I read, I often found myself pulling out my Adroid phone to look up a term or a concept in Wikipedia or some other online resource.  Without such a tool, the literature would have proven impenetrable.  I likened it to having an expert standing by to answer my questions as they arose.  In this case, technology enabled me to read to a depth that would have otherwise been impossible.

This is very different, though, from the reading experience described by Carr.  Like Carr, I too find hyperlinks embedded in a text to be distracting and generally irrelevant.  I rarely follow them at all.  If I do find a link intriguing, I fight off the urge to surf and return to the link only after I have finished the article.

Hyperlinks in text are often  gratuitous.  They are there simply because the Internet makes them possible.  We have been conditioned, however, to click on the blue underlined text. Resisting doing so takes considerable restraint.  If the research cited by Carr is accurate, those who click often embark on an odyssey from which they never return.

So, what does this mean for us as educators?  Do we conclude that digital texts and e-readers are bad?  Do we avoid the Internet and return to our familiar paper bound texts?

Of course not!  But we do need to teach our students how to read digital text and to avoid being seduced by the hyperlink's siren song.  We not only need to evaluate the content of digital texts, but also the quality of the production.  Is it full of distractions, or does it provide a well constructed discussion of the topic capable of standing alone?  We need to help our students learn to be deep readers even in the cacophonous digital environment in which they live.

Whether reading online or in a book they got from the library, our students are constantly susceptible to digital distraction.  Managing these distractions is a critical skill that we must ensure our students learn.