The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

by Nicholas Carr

A page of online text viewed through a computer screen may seem similar to a page of printed text. But scrolling or clicking through a Web document involves physical actions and sensory stimuli very different from those involved in holding and turning the pages of a book or a magazine. Research has shown that the cognitive act of reading draws not just on our sense of sight but also on our sense of touch. It’s tactile as well as visual. “All reading,” writes Anne Mangen, a Norwegian literary studies professor, is “multi-sensory.” There’s “a crucial link” between “the sensory-motor experience of the materiality” of a written work and “the cognitive processing of the text content.” 22 The shift from paper to screen doesn’t just change the way we navigate a piece of writing. It also influences the degree of attention we devote to it and the depth of our immersion in it.