Voices of Reason -- Nicholas Carr: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains

Humans' ability to modify our world through tools and technology has been the most important adaptive strategy shaping humankind physically, cognitively, and culturally. Understanding this technological trajectory is fundamental to understanding the human condition.

This evening, Nicholas Carr will discuss the findings described in his new book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Carr's book explores how the culture of the Web is changing, and in some cases dumbing down, our minds. Combining insights from philosophy, science, and history, The Shallows explains how the Internet is rerouting our neural pathways, and replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher.

Carr's talk will be preceded by a presentation by anthropologist Nicholas Toth, who is co-director of the Stone Age Institute in Bloomington, Ind. Toth will demonstrate the ways crucial technologies have affected both individual minds and society throughout history.

The presentations will be followed by a question-and–answer session and an author booksigning.

Tickets are $25 for the general public. However, CFI has reserved 80 free seats for paid Center for Inquiry members (Friends of the Center, donors). If you fit the criteria, please RSVP to sleroy@centerforinquiry.net.

This event is sponsored by The New York Academy of Sciences, Scientific American, and Center for Inquiry in New York City. It is part of the NYAS event series, "From Stone Age to Internet Age: How Science Has Evolved over Time." (https://www.nyas.org//)

Voices of Reason is the Center for Inquiry's lecture and panel discussion series featuring leading thinkers on philosophy, science, and religion.

About Nicholas Carr. Carr is author of recent book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Carr's book, just out in paperback, followed a widely discussed, highly controversial 2008 article in The Atlantic Monthly, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" This article was anthologized in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2009 , The Best Spiritual Writing 2010 , and The Best Technological Writing 2010. He is the author of two previous books and a contributor, among other publications, to Wired, The New York Times Magazine , The Financial Times , and The New Republic. Carr is also the author of the blog, Rough Type, which deals with many issues raised by the uneasy coexistence (at this point) between traditional print culture and the new digital culture. For more information, visit www.nicholascarr.com.