Nicholas Carr
American journalist and writer on technology, business and culture (born 1959); his book The Shallows (2010) was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction; wrote the blog Rough Type to 2024, then the newsletter New Cartographies.
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Nicholas Carr did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
The line under a date shows how recently it was said: empty within a month, full after three years.
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Our reading
More information did not open minds or inform people better; it can mean less understanding
Their wordsWe now know the answer: It was going to widen the gap between the pseudo-environments in which people think and feel and the real environment in which they live and act. It was going to reveal a fundamental paradox of modern communication systems: More information can mean less understanding.
↗The Myth of the Informed Citizennewcartographies.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsAlthough it inspires still, much as Whitman’s verse does, Dewey’s vision of a Great Community, in which the machinery and the art of communication come into perfect, living harmony, has been shattered. We live in its ruins, overwhelmed by the information that was meant to enlighten us, imprisoned by the data that describe us.
↗The Myth of the Informed Citizennewcartographies.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 8 months earlier
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Their wordsIt’s always good to be reminded that the ultimate effects of a broadly adopted new technology never match the early expectations.
↗Is Google Making Us Stupid? (The Atlantic, 2008; republished on New Cartographies)newcartographies.com 1st of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsWhat Taylor did for the work of the hand, Google is doing for the work of the mind.
↗Is Google Making Us Stupid? (The Atlantic, 2008; republished on New Cartographies)newcartographies.com 2nd of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsThe last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.
↗Is Google Making Us Stupid? (The Atlantic, 2008; republished on New Cartographies)newcartographies.com 3rd of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsThe kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds.
↗Is Google Making Us Stupid? (The Atlantic, 2008; republished on New Cartographies)newcartographies.com 4th of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsIf we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture.
↗Is Google Making Us Stupid? (The Atlantic, 2008; republished on New Cartographies)newcartographies.com 5th of 5 in this piece
- 12 months earlier
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Their wordsWith LLMs, the industrialization ethic moves at last into the creation of the very content of our speech.
The line under a date fills as the words age, a quarter at a time: past a month, six months, a year, and three years. Empty means said within the last month; full, more than three years ago. It says when, not whether it still holds — a change of mind is marked on the claim itself.
Dashed means we only know the words existed by that date; they may be older.