I'd like to think that even if one disagrees with the conclusions of Carr's The Shallows, one can agree that it does a good job of laying out the argument for the negative effects of technology and the internet without coming across as being just another tirade of a curmudgeon or luddite. Me, I'm at least one, probably both those things, so I often worry that my shared distrust of the internet is a product of something fundamentally irrational. But Carr manages to take many of my concerns and really get to why they should worry the society at large.

What's sad is that he seems to have relatively few supporters in his own generation; mine is of course beyond hope, and the one after will most likely bring about our ultimate destruction. It's remarkable how quickly society seems to have totally embraced the internet, rightfully praising its conveniences but too quickly dismissing what it loses when compared to technologies past. (I can almost picture the book being nonchalantly sunk in my lifetime, for example.) Being of the generation that came of mental maturity at the same time the internet did, it's hard to say whether the seeds for this societal shift were already in place. Maybe it's a convenient myth that people used to care about deep reading and all that in generations past. The internet may just be allowing people to indulge in frivolities that they used to indulge in through other forms. Who knows, maybe I was on the fringes starting from childhood...