Book

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Jan 2010 🇺🇸 W. W. Norton & Company

The Shallows is Nicholas Carr's 2010 book, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction, arguing that habitual internet use is associated with a shift away from sustained, linear reading toward skimming and rapid task-switching. Drawing on neuroplasticity research and his own experience, Carr describes losing patience for long-form reading after years of heavy online use, and links frequent hyperlinking, notifications, and multitasking to reduced attention span and shallower processing of information, in contrast with the deep-reading habits he associates with books. He frames the internet not as inherently harmful but as a medium whose design rewards distraction over depth. TechKids Foundation includes The Shallows as an early, widely cited articulation of concerns about attention and screen-mediated reading that later research on children's device use would build on.

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CITATION

Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. W. W. Norton & Company, 2010.

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