Plitko: Što internet čini našem mozgu

Nicholas Carr, former editor of the Harvard Business Review, became famous for his article “IT Doesn’t Matter” (2003) and his book Does IT matter? (2004), in which he argued that investments in information technology are giving companies less and less of a strategic advantage, and that IT (for companies where information technology is not a core business) is becoming more and more a matter of infrastructure and less and less a matter of competitive advantage. Without a doubt, this is the most compelling study yet of the intellectual and cultural consequences of the Internet. In addition to describing how “instruments of the mind” have shaped human thought for centuries—from the alphabet to maps, the printing press, the clock, and the computer—Carr weaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience. Our brains, as historical and scientific evidence of neuroplasticity has shown, change depending on what we experience. The technologies we use to find, store, and share information literally reshape and rewire our neural pathways. Part intellectual history, part popular science, part cultural critique, Shallow is bursting with unforgettable vignettes – of Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with his typewriter or Sigmund Freud dissecting the brains of fish and crustaceans – all the while holding fast to deep questions about the state of the modern human psyche.