Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: Discussion on Carr's Chapter 10

Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows

Discussion on Carr's Chapter 10

1) Ok, so ELIZA was a simple program but it still seemed to be able to seduce users into believing some personal conversation was happening. Our smart phones, tablets, laptops and video games are so much more complex programs. How this danger play out? How might your understanding of the effects ELIZA had on users be useful in your own or your colleagues’ research papers?

2) On page 207, Carr characterizes what Weizenbaum came to believe is what makes us human. What seems to make us human (as opposed to machines)? And how do our digital technologies push to be more like machines and less than human?

3) Tools both extend our power and limit our power. A hammer gives the ability to pound nails but limits our hands to only pounding nails. But a hammer is a very simple tool. A smart phone, a computer, is an incredibly complex tool, so how might this kind of tool – which gives us incredible power – impose incredible and widely enforced limitations? Offer any theories you might have about our digital tech limits us. And how might it apply to your investigations?

4) Carr claims that “the price we pay to assume technology’s power is alienation” (211). What does Carr mean here by alienation? How is your digital technology alienating you? Or how does it alienate the people you know? Anything useful here for your paper?