For today’s class, you read the sixth chapter from Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows. Spend the first ten minutes writing your summary of the reading. Focus on what you identified as this chapter’s thesis or argument. Type up your response and post it as a comment here before we meet next Monday.
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In this chapter, Nicholas Carr talks about how the need for physical books are declining with the rise of digital media outlets and e-books. Books that were once only available to us through hard copies are now easily accessed through the web and on e-books. With this efficient source, the need for a hard copy is no longer needed. Carr talks about a Japanese trend that has been in the spotlight. The trend that had people reading about was strings of text messages online that were written by online authors. These strings of text messages would be easily accessed by the public. In the year of 2007, the top 3 best sellers in Japan were written in this manner. this shows how effective it really is. Although outlandish, the results are amazing. A Japanese reporter states that these results are because of the easily understood sentences, relate to the stories and words are easily comprehensible. I can relate to this because i really hate reading a book that has “hard” vocabulary that i don’t understand and to go with it, a story that is totally unfamiliar and unrelated. These are the reasons that the digital media and e-books are more used than physical hard copy books.
During recent times, we lost the art of reading. It isn’t only reading that we lost, technology had affected every aspect of our lives. Nevertheless reading, was the one art that has been impacted the most. Once you start reading an article, newspaper, or eBook in the internet, you change the way you read. We often perceive an eBook to be like an online book, but that is false because it is more of a newspaper or article than it is a book. How has our reading change so dramatically? To start off we don’t read book like it as a book anymore, we skim the page and find whatever seem as important information. Instead of reading the entire book, we lose the idea of deep reading and focus what is important in the page. Electronic text is impermanent, meaning we would forget what we read in a short term. It is best to have a hard copy at front of you instead of electronic copy because we learn and remember better if we had a hard copy of it. But that is the case for most people and not for everybody else.
During this chapter Carr’s talks about how people is manege this as a separate technology. Reading still part of the human activities, what has being changing through time is the way people used to read this book. Physical book are now not as popular as they were before, this is because the e-books are on the market now. People prefer to used net and search for the book as quick as they can just in one place than instead of going into a library and search for the same book and run the risk that they don’t have it in that specific library. Moreover to this our reading even thought the habit steal there our comprehension changes. We are no longer the deeps readers as we used to be before, now what we just to is look at the book pages and search for the most important things we thing the book said. We no longer read a hole book as it should be we don’t focus anymore on the text. technology has take over part of our comprehension and creativity while reading a book.
In Nicholas Carr’s book “The Shallows” chapter 6, he talks about how the needs for physical copies of books are deteriorating as things like digital audio books and e-books start to become more popular. Back then, books were only available to us through a certain amount of copies and not every could have gotten one. Now it can easily be accessed through the internet or on through other applications. With the ability to access books this way, the demand for a hard copy is has become obsolete. Nicholas talks about a trend in Japan that has been becoming increasingly popular over the years. It was essentially strings of text messages online that were written by online authors. These strings of text messages are easily accessible by the public. A Japanese reporter stated the reason these text messages are becoming increasingly popular is because of the how easily these sentences were able to be understood, relate to the stories and words are easily comprehensible. These are just some of the reasons why things like digital audio books and e-books are starting to make physical books obsolete.
Within the sixth chapter of Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows” titled “The very image of the book”, we are introduced to the direction in which books are heading in today’s world. According to this chapter, digital books, although not having much contrast with regular books, is taking off. The book was made to be an innovation to previous forms of reading utensils . The digitized form of books are seeking out to further emphasize the innovative feats that have been attained by the book itself. Being that the contrast between the digital book, and an actual solid book isn’t that great, Nicholas Carr points this out. However, he also points out what has been done to digital books in order to make them much more convenient than that of a regular book. With being able to highlight things much more easily, look up definitions of books on the fly and saving them, and much more, digital books have been made to be quite the useful tool for reading. Yet even though that may be the case, Nicholas Carr points out that when you go from a solid book to a digital book, you are changing the way you read. The contrast between reading a book on an LED screen, and reading a solid book is quite the difference. On top of that, Carr points out that they’re still certain conveniences that you have with a solid book over a digital book. These contrast being that with a solid book, you don’t have to worry about it ever dying, you can sleep with it and not worry about it falling off your bed, and you can even spill coffee on it.
In this chapter Carr argue on how important the book is, and I agree with him. The book has been around for century now and it’s the only technology that hasn’t change. This is because it is already perfect, and why change something that’s already good. The book is a long sequence of printed pages assembled between a pair of stiff covers. This was the concept that was use when it was invented and it’s the same used today. Reading a physical book over a digital version has its own benefit. One of these benefit is that it is robust and you could take it anywhere and don’t have to worry that the battery is going to died or it being damage by water. Personally I rather read the physical book itself because you get the satisfaction of reading a book and with less distraction. There is so much other thing you could do on a digital reading platform such as the kindle, that I wouldn’t read the book. Kindle which is an Amazon base company is one of the most popular digital reading platform today. It was introduce in 2007. He also mentions that the way we read change the way we write. One example of this is the texting language, whereby we use the abbreviation of the word and the way it is pronounce. These are all the reason why I agree with him on this one because they’re not just facts that I read their experiences that I go through on an everyday basis myself.
Nicholas Carr’s sixth chapter, “The Very Image of a Book”, talks about how books have changed drastically over the short amount of time that the internet has been around. One of his points is that when a book is turned into a eBook, the entire way readers look at in information is different. They go from being completely immersed in another world with no distractions, to just browsing the work, while being notified of things happening else where in cyberspace. He also states that with the development of the internet is the loss of perfection. This means that, when an author writes a book, and publishes it, that book is final and finished. However, when that book is written on the web, there is less strive for perfection because it can always be changed, updated or anything else. The effects of this, to me, is that authors would become to lazy in their publications and their writing would not be as effective or interesting to the reader. Likewise, the reader, who has all the distractions of the entire web to deal with, would be less inclined to “read deeper” or do some research of their own based on what they read because the distraction is so overwhelming coupled with a lazy author, people would begin to just read words and not understand ideas.
In chapter six of Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows” he talks about how books have been the more resilient media to give in to the internet. He mentions this is because on a computer sound hits your ear the same way that it would on a radio and you can watch a video the same way that you would on a TV. The thing about books is that you don’t need to charge them in order to read them and it is not physically the same to feel yourself turning the page of a book than to click it. Also he mentions that you can sit on a book without breaking it, you can spill coffee on it, and you can leave it open for several days and when you get back it’ll be exactly as you left it. His argument also states that it is easier on the eyes to look at ink on paper for a couple of hours than to look at pixels on a backlit screen. Still he mentions that books are not exempt from the change of technology and that they will still have the same fate as other media because of the benefits for manufacturers of books like no cost of printer inks and shipping cost or no returns on unsold books. Also the benefits for the consumer like being able to carry a whole library of books on one e-reader.
In chapter six, Nicholas Carr talks about how books are on the Internet. Anytime a book is created, it gets transferred into and evil so our electronic devices can enable use to see it. Most people will look at an Ebola because they spend more time on the Internet using their phones, tablets, and computers. Books that are online and printed books are said to have s change in the style of reading. When a book is printed into a hard copy it is know as the finalized product. But when the book is online into an ebook, it is impermanent. To this day there are some people who still prefer a hard copy book. They know that the information will always be there and you can show evidence to the reader. On the other hand, if your reading an ebook it is not the same as if your were reading it in print. When reading ebook a you start to loose focuse because there are a bunch of advertisements, you start checking your emails, and do other things besides reading the book you were supposed to read.
Chapter 6 of Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows” discusses the topic of reading online compared to reading a physical copy of a book or magazine. Simply reading a book online changes the experience of reading and also makes you vulnerable to the distractions of the web. Carr later discusses how changes in reading also brings changes to writing styles as well because of the author’s prior need to adapt to the reader’s new expectations. We are given an example as to how authors now compose stories on their phone and then later upload them to a website where other readers read and comment. They are known an cell phone novels which originated in Japan in 2001. Eventually these cell phone novels really caught the people’s attention so physical copies were printed. By the end of 2007, the top 3 swelling Japanese novels were all originally written on cell phones.
Nicolas Carr’s “The Shallows” chapter six discusses about books. These books have been with us shortly after writing was invented. However, these books are losing their power and influence over people today due to technology. The internet and e-books are more convenient, less expensive, and environmental friendly. Also that there may be some features that enhances one’s experience while reading, too. While with books on the other hand, readers are deserting books by professional writers because their sentences are to difficult to understand, their expressions are intentionally too wordy, and the stories are not familiar to them. However, one good thing that Nicolas Carr mentions about books is that,” The finality of the act of publishing has long instilled in the best and most conscientious writers and editors a desire, even anxiety, to perfect the works they produce – to write with an eye toward eternity.”
Carr makes a huge contrast between regular books and e-books. He is trying to establish the idea that despite both having the purpose of being written word, the way our brains process them is very different. While reading hard copies of books seems like it is boring, it is the one way that our brains process them fully. This, of course, is according to Carr. I personally don’t see myself reading hard copy books, or books at all, but I believe that e-books are not only what the modern era has brought up, but it is very important that we get accustomed to this new method of reading. According to Carr though, innovations such as the Amazon Kindle and other e-book technologies are damaging the way we read. There are many “distractions” that make it hard for us to read, such as advertisements on the sidebar of a website, and the technology itself that can distract us, but one can argue that reading paperback books also has distractions. The idea that e-books aren’t good for your brain’s processing is one of those things that I disagree with. I feel as if its personal choice, since each brain is different, and there is a possibility that some brains are more equipped to take advantage of new technologies rather than the old methodology of doing things.
In chapter six of Nicholas Carr’s, “What the Internet Is Doing To Doing To Our Brains The Shallows”, he argues that the invention of handheld electronic reading devices almost rival that of the efficiencies that come with a book. He acknowledges the benefits and disadvantages that come with both technologies. The kindle or hand-held reading devices in its beginnings did not meet up to its hype and until recently had not made much progress in its popularity. Only about two or three years ago did the kindle make steady positive sells and grew in popularity. What most people found frustrating with the kindle is that they could not do the same things they could do with a book. You don’t have to worry if your book will run out of battery or if it will break if you drop it. You don’t have to worry if you spill water over. You can sit on it, use it as a stand, or once you’re done with it you can put it in shelf to get rid of the empty space in your shelf. Of course, the kindle has innovated itself with new features like the usage of hypertext and the internet or being able to not be dim if one were to be outdoors. This all helps its argument but the pros that come with reading a book outweighs those of using a kindle to read. However, researchers think that over time there will be a new method of reading and distributing information. They believe that internet usage will affect the way we communicate more and more as it allows for rapid-fire conversations and immediate feedback and comments. Nonetheless, in previous times in human history the book has survived oncoming threats like that of the newspaper, radio, movies, TV, videogames, etc. It will surely survive the internet and the kindle but it will most likely be altered in a way that best fits us at the time. For now, reading books are still what we believe to be the best way to learn new information in the most immersive and efficient way possible.
In Nicholas Carr “The shallows”,Carr shares his own opinion about the internet and accessibility to books. Carr mentions how book publishers have suffered some losses of business. The way we read has changed in general. I think there is no way we can reverse time and go back to reading book.The fact is that reading on screen of a smart device is more convenient. Book publisher should understand that the customer is always right. Moreover, Carr describes some pros and cons about reading devices compare to a book.Carr says that almost all technological devices have a monitors or screen with speaks, so cause too much distraction.Carr also discusses a recent Japanese trend I had not heard of – cell phone novels. Authors compose on their mobile devices and upload strings of text messages online. The stories became wildly popular – according to Carr’s research, the 3 best-sellers in Japan in 2007 were written in this manner. A Japanese reporter states that readers are deserting physical books “by professional writers because their sentences are too difficult to understand, their expressions are intentionally too wordy, and the stories are not familiar to them.”
In chapter six of “The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr, entitled The Very Image of A Book, Carr talks about how our method of reading has changed over time. The printed book had begun to lose value, due to the now constant use of technologies such as PDF files and e-books. One of the main reasons for the transition is the clarity of the words on an e-reader versus the printed words on the page of a book. Also the convenience of having multiple reads within a device makes it more convenient as well. This makes us as humans a lot lazier and more dependent on this technology, since everything can be searched within an e-reader rather than actually taking the time to read through a book. This advancement has led to creation of cell phone novels, which takes away from the process of writing and having books published.