One of today’s Fresh Pressed is the intriguingly-titled “Short Attention Span Theater or Why My Students Can’t Read Books.” It’s a review of a book called The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr. Carr’s thesis is that the Internet as a medium (not in terms of content) is changing the way we think, specifically that it encourages distraction, rather than sustained focus. Carr cites some scientific studies that extensive internet use can aggravate attention defici-ooh, shiny! and reduces memory function.

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