The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains

by Nicholas Carr

In selecting targets of attention, the network gives priority to four types of stimuli: those that are novel or unexpected, those that are pleasurable or otherwise rewarding, those that are personally relevant, and those that are emotionally engaging.16 These are exactly the kinds of stimuli our smartphones supply—all the time and in abundance. Refreshing their contents continuously, our phones are fonts of new and surprising information. Our phones give us stimulation and gratification whenever we check them, triggering releases of the pleasure-producing neurotransmitter dopamine.17 Because they are deeply personal repositories of photos and messages, our phones are always of immediate relevance to us. And our phones are emotionally charged. They send and receive signals of our social status, and they flood us with information on the people, events, and subjects we care most about. Imagine combining a mailbox, a newspaper, a TV, a radio, a photo album, a public library, a personal diary, and a boisterous party attended by everyone you know, and then compressing them all into a single, small, radiant object. That’s what a smartphone represents to us.