Write: In a topic-driven, well-organized, and well-substantiated paragraph, SUMMARIZE
Carr’s argument—his “they say”—in chapter “Four: The Deeping Page.”
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Nicholas Carr shows that the large advancements made in technology made readers be able to read deeply into the text and analyze for themselves. Because the reading became easier, Carr explains that, talking about the brain, “it can dedicate more resources to the interpretation of meaning.” (63). Carr is showing that the advancements made by writing in general made it easier for people to interpret what the text is saying rather than focusing on figuring out which sentence comes before which. Several inventions like the printing press and adding a space between words added on to the expansion of readers, as well as allowing people become deeper thinkers because the text is easier to read. These inventions also made two different types of reading the reading where a person glances over something, and the other type where a person reads in detail and examines the text. When the reader is involved with a text, the reader’s mind stimulates what is happening in the book creating a deeper analysis.
In Chapter 4, Carr discusses how with the changes in writing, people began to deeply read and analyze the text much differently and easier than they did in ancient times, allowing the brain to truly take in what was being taught in the text. Before advances such as spaces between each word, people were so focused on determining where the text began and ended that they completely lost the meaning of what they were reading along the way. Carr states that “To read a book was to practice an unnatural process of thought, one that demanded sustained, unbroken attention to a single, static object…” (64), portraying the struggle of people in ancient times to dive deep into their works of literature due to its difficulty to understand. Now, however, with all the advances in writing, people can deeply and profoundly analyze the text, allowing the mind to expand and grow with each passing word. They allowed for people to develop their own ideas from the text they were reading, and as Carr says in The Shallows, “They thought deeply as they read deeply.” (65).
In Nicolas Carr’s The Shallows he begins to show us the evolution of the written language, and how it affects our minds. Most surprisingly silent reading was not very common in early days. Most tablets and scrolls were always read aloud. Carr tells us that the written language didn’t “break from the oral tradition” (62) until after the fall of the Roman Empire. The number of literate people grew from that point on, before then only the royal courts were literate. Books and readers have this connection that nobody else will know about. The old technology for people was books or any kinds of literature they could get their hands on. Now we rely on television, computers, phones, etc to get our work done for us. The human mind has become somewhat incapable of what it used to because we are used to having everything so simple and in the palm of our hands.
In this chapter, Carr describes the many changes writing has gone through over the years and how it has affected the human brain. In the ancient world not only was silent reading unheard of, so were the spaces in between words. Word order and structure came along after the second millennium. Carr states, “the placing of spaces between words alleviated the cognitive strain involved in deciphering text, making it possible for people to read quickly, silently, and with greater comprehension.” (63). The mind comprehended text better with the word structure, and silent reading helped take away the distractions so more depth of the text could be absorbed. As books became more popular, so did it’s intellectual ethic. Society began to mentally get involved and strengthen their point of views, and even add more neural pathways. The printing press came into play here, and all eyes were stuck in books. Now adays Carr discusses, “A new intellectual ethic is taking hold. The pathways in our brains are once again being rerouted.” (77). This “new intellectual ethic” he is talking about is a computer.
In chapter four “the deepening page”, Carr describes how literature, from primitive to modern, shapes the way society and the individual mind thinks. He traces writing as it moves from whatever scrap is available, to tablet, papyrus, and finally the printing press. Reading silently, he says, required us to be more contemplative and slow in our thought, because “the natural state of the human brain, like that of the brains of most of our relatives in the animal kingdom, is one of distractedness. Our predisposition is to shift our gaze, and hence our attention, from one object to another, to be aware of as much of what’s going on around us possible.” Printing presses extended this mentality, because suddenly the written word was not reserved to the elite, but could be shared and produced by anyone. This also changed what we thought, because “books allowed readers to compare their thoughts and experiences not just with religious precepts, whether embedded in symbols or voiced by the clergy, but with the thoughts and experiences of others.” Language expanded as this new appetite for words demanded writers to express more complex and abstract concepts, which in turn required the language to stretch and grow to accommodate this. Overall, “as language expanded, consciousness deepened,” and books created neural pathways that extended this deep thinking,imagination, and superfluous language into common thought. However, we are once again facing a change. Electronic media is “approaching its culmination” as computer technology becomes ever-present in our lives and as the book is slowly passed over for the Internet. Carr concludes the chapter, “a new intellectual ethic is taking hold. The pathways in our brains are once again being rerouted.”
In chapter four of Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows", Carr describes to his readers how the written language has undergone evolution, and how it has been affecting our brains.Once, written word was not as important as it came to be, people in the ancient times spoke orally, and wrote what they heard. Books later became the most innovative technology, the newest thing. Carr states, "The bond between book reader and book writer has always been a tightly symbolic one, a means of intellectual and artistic cross-fertilization" (74). With the invention of the computer and smartphones, it is easy to ponder on if this intellectual and artistic cross-fertilization Carr speaks about will cease to exist. If people are no longer buying or reading books, how is it possible for this bond to occur? Our brains are adapting and becoming accustomed to the newest technology that we attach ourselves to, which is going to change the way our brain perceives and focuses on the written word
In the fourth chapter it is more about analyzing and reading deeper into what you are doing. The brain works in mysteries ways and no one on this earth is really not dumb. Thinking deeper makes the brain work and that’s where we get our interoperations on things as Carr says. We think about a lot of information especially if we are interested in it and with our interests we become deep thinkers. By reading a book we can absorb a lot of information and think about what we think about the book. Then we can break it down into details and get what information we need out of the book. Our brain is more like a computer, so why do we need technology when we can use the computer in our heads? Carr is trying to show that the brain is a deep reader that interprets information to help us think about what we are talking about.
Chapter four focuses on the development of writing and how the oral world essentially shaped the writing of today, by allowing us to be able to read texts easier than in older time periods. As writing materials matured from clay tablets, to scrolls, to wax tablets, and so on, language played a role in what was written. Carr says, “Even as the technology of the book sped ahead, the legacy of the oral world continued to shape the way our words on pages were written and read.” This is very true though, because you cannot have words on a page that you don’t know orally. This chapter covers the initial evolution of the different eras and their bringing ups of books. It later on discusses, that through all the new developments of writing people can read closely and comprehend way better than before.
Chapter four focuses on the development of writing and how the oral world essentially shaped the writing of today, by allowing us to be able to read texts easier than in older time periods. As writing materials matured from clay tablets, to scrolls, to wax tablets, and so on, language played a role in what was written. Carr says, “Even as the technology of the book sped ahead, the legacy of the oral world continued to shape the way our words on pages were written and read.” This is very true though, because you cannot have words on a page that you don’t know orally. This chapter covers the initial evolution of the different eras and their bringing ups of books. It later on discusses, that through all the new developments of writing people can read closely and comprehend way better than before.
Learning and knowing how to write is the norm for us today. But in this chapter Carr gives us a history lesson of how writing all began, going back to Ancient Egyptian times from writing on scrolls of the papyrus plants to wax tablets to Gutenberg's printing press. As punctuation, books, and silent reading with books evolved out of writing so did the minds of the people. "The changes in written language liberated the writer as well as the reader" (65) People began to train their minds to concrete on literature pieces, practicing this new skill. Which was creating new circuits and awakening new sectors of the brain that have never been used before. This chapter is telling how our comprehension, analyzing, and thought process skills came to be and evolved along the "technology" of writing and reading throughout history.
As society evolves, so does the methods of communication or spreading spoken or written word to masses. Carr points out in chapter 4 that books, as a higher form of communication, led to the need for higher and deeper levels of thinking. "Readers didn't just become more efficient, they also became more attentive. To read along books silently required an ability to concentrate intently over a long period of time, to 'lose oneself' in the pages of a book, as we now say." However, Carr argues that in the same way that society moved from primitive thinking to deep thoughts through books, we now move into another era as the internet once again changes the way we think.
Nicholas Carr shows that the large advancements made in technology made readers be able to read deeply into the text and analyze for themselves. Because the reading became easier, Carr explains that, talking about the brain, “it can dedicate more resources to the interpretation of meaning.” (63). Carr is showing that the advancements made by writing in general made it easier for people to interpret what the text is saying rather than focusing on figuring out which sentence comes before which. Several inventions like the printing press and adding a space between words added on to the expansion of readers, as well as allowing people become deeper thinkers because the text is easier to read. These inventions also made two different types of reading the reading where a person glances over something, and the other type where a person reads in detail and examines the text. When the reader is involved with a text, the reader’s mind stimulates what is happening in the book creating a deeper analysis.
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter 4, Carr discusses how with the changes in writing, people began to deeply read and analyze the text much differently and easier than they did in ancient times, allowing the brain to truly take in what was being taught in the text. Before advances such as spaces between each word, people were so focused on determining where the text began and ended that they completely lost the meaning of what they were reading along the way. Carr states that “To read a book was to practice an unnatural process of thought, one that demanded sustained, unbroken attention to a single, static object…” (64), portraying the struggle of people in ancient times to dive deep into their works of literature due to its difficulty to understand. Now, however, with all the advances in writing, people can deeply and profoundly analyze the text, allowing the mind to expand and grow with each passing word. They allowed for people to develop their own ideas from the text they were reading, and as Carr says in The Shallows, “They thought deeply as they read deeply.” (65).
ReplyDeleteIn Nicolas Carr’s The Shallows he begins to show us the evolution of the written language, and how it affects our minds. Most surprisingly silent reading was not very common in early days. Most tablets and scrolls were always read aloud. Carr tells us that the written language didn’t “break from the oral tradition” (62) until after the fall of the Roman Empire. The number of literate people grew from that point on, before then only the royal courts were literate. Books and readers have this connection that nobody else will know about. The old technology for people was books or any kinds of literature they could get their hands on. Now we rely on television, computers, phones, etc to get our work done for us. The human mind has become somewhat incapable of what it used to because we are used to having everything so simple and in the palm of our hands.
ReplyDeleteIn this chapter, Carr describes the many changes writing has gone through over the years and how it has affected the human brain. In the ancient world not only was silent reading unheard of, so were the spaces in between words. Word order and structure came along after the second millennium. Carr states, “the placing of spaces between words alleviated the cognitive strain involved in deciphering text, making it possible for people to read quickly, silently, and with greater comprehension.” (63). The mind comprehended text better with the word structure, and silent reading helped take away the distractions so more depth of the text could be absorbed. As books became more popular, so did it’s intellectual ethic. Society began to mentally get involved and strengthen their point of views, and even add more neural pathways. The printing press came into play here, and all eyes were stuck in books. Now adays Carr discusses, “A new intellectual ethic is taking hold. The pathways in our brains are once again being rerouted.” (77). This “new intellectual ethic” he is talking about is a computer.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter four “the deepening page”, Carr describes how literature, from primitive to modern, shapes the way society and the individual mind thinks. He traces writing as it moves from whatever scrap is available, to tablet, papyrus, and finally the printing press. Reading silently, he says, required us to be more contemplative and slow in our thought, because “the natural state of the human brain, like that of the brains of most of our relatives in the animal kingdom, is one of distractedness. Our predisposition is to shift our gaze, and hence our attention, from one object to another, to be aware of as much of what’s going on around us possible.” Printing presses extended this mentality, because suddenly the written word was not reserved to the elite, but could be shared and produced by anyone. This also changed what we thought, because “books allowed readers to compare their thoughts and experiences not just with religious precepts, whether embedded in symbols or voiced by the clergy, but with the thoughts and experiences of others.” Language expanded as this new appetite for words demanded writers to express more complex and abstract concepts, which in turn required the language to stretch and grow to accommodate this. Overall, “as language expanded, consciousness deepened,” and books created neural pathways that extended this deep thinking,imagination, and superfluous language into common thought. However, we are once again facing a change. Electronic media is “approaching its culmination” as computer technology becomes ever-present in our lives and as the book is slowly passed over for the Internet. Carr concludes the chapter, “a new intellectual ethic is taking hold. The pathways in our brains are once again being rerouted.”
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter four of Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows", Carr describes to his readers how the written language has undergone evolution, and how it has been affecting our brains.Once, written word was not as important as it came to be, people in the ancient times spoke orally, and wrote what they heard. Books later became the most innovative technology, the newest thing. Carr states, "The bond between book reader and book writer has always been a tightly symbolic one, a means of intellectual and artistic cross-fertilization" (74). With the invention of the computer and smartphones, it is easy to ponder on if this intellectual and artistic cross-fertilization Carr speaks about will cease to exist. If people are no longer buying or reading books, how is it possible for this bond to occur? Our brains are adapting and becoming accustomed to the newest technology that we attach ourselves to, which is going to change the way our brain perceives and focuses on the written word
ReplyDeleteIn the fourth chapter it is more about analyzing and reading deeper into what you are doing. The brain works in mysteries ways and no one on this earth is really not dumb. Thinking deeper makes the brain work and that’s where we get our interoperations on things as Carr says. We think about a lot of information especially if we are interested in it and with our interests we become deep thinkers. By reading a book we can absorb a lot of information and think about what we think about the book. Then we can break it down into details and get what information we need out of the book. Our brain is more like a computer, so why do we need technology when we can use the computer in our heads? Carr is trying to show that the brain is a deep reader that interprets information to help us think about what we are talking about.
ReplyDeleteChapter four focuses on the development of writing and how the oral world essentially shaped the writing of today, by allowing us to be able to read texts easier than in older time periods. As writing materials matured from clay tablets, to scrolls, to wax tablets, and so on, language played a role in what was written. Carr says, “Even as the technology of the book sped ahead, the legacy of the oral world continued to shape the way our words on pages were written and read.” This is very true though, because you cannot have words on a page that you don’t know orally. This chapter covers the initial evolution of the different eras and their bringing ups of books. It later on discusses, that through all the new developments of writing people can read closely and comprehend way better than before.
ReplyDeleteChapter four focuses on the development of writing and how the oral world essentially shaped the writing of today, by allowing us to be able to read texts easier than in older time periods. As writing materials matured from clay tablets, to scrolls, to wax tablets, and so on, language played a role in what was written. Carr says, “Even as the technology of the book sped ahead, the legacy of the oral world continued to shape the way our words on pages were written and read.” This is very true though, because you cannot have words on a page that you don’t know orally. This chapter covers the initial evolution of the different eras and their bringing ups of books. It later on discusses, that through all the new developments of writing people can read closely and comprehend way better than before.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLearning and knowing how to write is the norm for us today. But in this chapter Carr gives us a history lesson of how writing all began, going back to Ancient Egyptian times from writing on scrolls of the papyrus plants to wax tablets to Gutenberg's printing press. As punctuation, books, and silent reading with books evolved out of writing so did the minds of the people. "The changes in written language liberated the writer as well as the reader" (65) People began to train their minds to concrete on literature pieces, practicing this new skill. Which was creating new circuits and awakening new sectors of the brain that have never been used before. This chapter is telling how our comprehension, analyzing, and thought process skills came to be and evolved along the "technology" of writing and reading throughout history.
ReplyDeleteAs society evolves, so does the methods of communication or spreading spoken or written word to masses. Carr points out in chapter 4 that books, as a higher form of communication, led to the need for higher and deeper levels of thinking. "Readers didn't just become more efficient, they also became more attentive. To read along books silently required an ability to concentrate intently over a long period of time, to 'lose oneself' in the pages of a book, as we now say." However, Carr argues that in the same way that society moved from primitive thinking to deep thoughts through books, we now move into another era as the internet once again changes the way we think.
ReplyDelete