Figurative Language/Detail
The map and clock changed language indirectly, by suggesting new metaphors to describe natural phenomena. Other intellectual technologies change language more directly, and more deeply, by actually altering the way we speak and listen or read and write. They might enlarge or compress our vocabulary, modify the norms of diction or word order, or encourage either simpler or more complex syntax. Because language is, for human beings, the primary vessel of conscious thought, particularly higher forms of thought, the technologies that restructure language tend to exert the strongest influence over our intellectual lives. As the classical scholar Walter J. Ong put it, “Technologies are not mirror exterior aids but also interior transformations of consciousness, and never more than when they affect the word.” The history of language is also a history of the mind. (50)
Commentary
Carr’s figurative language and sentence structure convey that developing technologies have had an impact on the maturation of the mind and its processes of thinking and analyzing. Carr compared the clock to the internet “by suggesting new metaphors to describe natural phenomena”. This metaphor emphasizes how our minds were shaped to fit around the schedule of the clock as it was introduced. The clock highlights the influence it has on priorities in one’s life. Furthermore, the sentence structure describes the types of technology with the greatest impact on our intellectual lives are those that alter our mind. The clock altered the way we our brains think, and similarly other intellectual technologies alter language and how we “speak and listen” or “read and write”, such as the internet. Language is the “history of the mind”, which reveals our brain is also affected by technology.
Diction/Detail
As language expanded, consciousness deepened. The deepening extended beyond the page. It's no exaggeration to say that the writing and reading of books enhanced and refined people's experience of life and of nature. “The remarkable virtuosity displayed by new literary artists who managed to counterfeit taste, touch, smell, or sound in mere words required a heightened awareness and closer observation of sensory experience that was passed on in turn to the reader,” writes Einstein. Like painters and composers, writers were able “to alter perception” in a way “that enriched rather than stunted sensuous response to external stimuli, expanded rather than contracted sympathetic response to the varieties of human experience.” The words and books didn't just strengthen people's ability to think abstractly; they enriched people’s experience of the physical world, the world outside the book. (75)
Commentary
Carr’s diction and detail emphasize that the depth of imagination and attentiveness of people was heightened as a result of readers losing themselves in books. While reading a book consciousness is “deepened” and perception of the physical world is “enriched”. This diction highlights how the mind expands to experience all of the dimensions of life in a newly strengthened way as a result of deep reading. Books enlightened the mind and opened it up to new possibilities, through a “closer observation of sensory experience”. They “enriched rather than stunted sensuous response” to the outside world. Carr’s details toughen the argument that people have a greater sense of concentration after deep reading, since deep reading allows the reader to connect the book to daily life.
Figurative Language/Imagery
Searching and browsing seems to “exercise” the brain in a way similar to solving crossword puzzles, says Small. But the extensive activity in the brains of surfers also points to why deep reading and other acts of sustain concentration become so difficult online. The need to evaluate links and make related navigational choices, while also processing a multiplicity of fleeting sensory stimuli, requires constant mental coordination in decision-making, distracting the brain from the work of interpreting text or other information. Whenever we, as readers, come upon a link, we have to pause, for at least a split second, to allow our prefrontal cortex to evaluate whether or not we should click on it. The redirection of our mental resources, from reading words to making judgments, may be imperceptible to us—our brains are quick—but it’s been shown to impede comprehension and retention,
Commentary
Carr’s figurative language and imagery illustrates that common internet browsing negatively affects one’s ability to interpret text and other sources of information. Searching the internet is “similar to solving crossword puzzles” because both activities require a sense of decision making and decoding of information. This comparison shows that because browsing the internet requires a lot of choices on what to click on or look at, there is little time for deep thinking and analysis. Comprehension while reading is negatively impacted since readers have to “pause, for at least a split second, to allow our prefrontal cortex to evaluate” the resources. Carr elicits this imagery to explain how distraction can fill up an individual’s working memory so that they are unable to attain knowledge about what they have read.
particularly when it's repeated frequently. As the executive functions of the prefrontal
cortex kick in, our brains become not only exercised but overtaxed. (122)
Figurative Language/Syntax
When a carpenter picks up a hammer, the hammer becomes, so far as his brain is concerned, part of his hand. When a soldier raises a pair of binoculars to his face, his brain sees through a new set of eyes, adapting instantaneously to a very different field of view. Experiments on pliers-wielding monkeys revealed how readily the plastic primate brain can incorporate tools into its sensory maps, making the artificial feel natural. In the human brain, that capacity has advanced far beyond whats seen in even our closest primate cousins. Our ability to meld with all manner of tools is one of the qualities that most distinguishes us as a species. In combination with our superior cognitive skills, it's what makes it so good at using new technologies. It's also what makes us so good at inventing them. Our brains can imagine the mechanics and the benefits of using a new device before that device even exists. (208)
Commentary
Carr’s figurative language and syntax demonstrate that the natural ability for humans to incorporate tools into their life causes a dependency on tools and technology. Soldiers rely on binoculars as their “new set of eyes” to allow them to see a “very different point of view”. This figurative language shows that the brain adapts promptly to new tools and treats them as a part of the body and not just a resource. Our natural ability to pick up on new technologies is what makes humans “so good at using new technologies” and “so good at inventing them”. Carr’s sentence structure reveals that technology shapes how humans function humans, and in return humans shape and create technology. Humans use their abilities with tools to create tools such as the internet and computers. The cycle reveals how humans can become dependent on technology after extensive time spent constantly around them.