The shallows : what the Internet is doing to our brains / Nicholas Carr.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-256) and index.

The watchdog and the thief
Hal and me
The vital paths
On what the brain thinks about when it thinks about itself
Tools of the mind
The deepening page
On Lee de Forest and his amazing audion
A medium of the most general nature
The very image of a book
The juggler's brain
On the buoyancy of IQ scores
The church of Google
Search, memory
On the writing of this book
A thing like me
Human elements

As we enjoy the Internet's bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Carr describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by "tools of the mind"--The alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer--and interweaves recent discoveries in neuroscience. Now, he expands his argument into a compelling exploration of the Internet's intellectual and cultural consequences. Our brains, scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. Building on insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a case that every information technology carries a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. The printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In contrast, the Internet encourages rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information. As we become ever more adept at scanning and skimming, are we losing our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection?