Best-selling author Nick Carr delves into society’s technology dependence

Acclaimed writer on technology, economics and culture Nick Carr spoke at Seminole State College of Florida on Thursday, Sept. 19, as part of the College’s ongoing Speaker Series. Carr presented on “What Our Smartphones are Doing to Our Minds,” delving into how crucial our phones have become to us and the cognitive, psychological and social repercussions of that dependence.

“We’ve never had this kind of interaction with a single technology before. It has been hard for researchers to get exactly how much and how often we use our phones because if you ask somebody they will underestimate it vastly,” said Carr about smartphones. “It is so tied up in everything we do that it really feels like, not only something we are dependent on, but that our entire life is somehow held in this device.” 

Carr has written several books including The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2011 and a New York Times bestseller. A journalist by trade, Carr received his bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and a master’s degree in English and American literature from Harvard University. Over the course of his career, Carr has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The New York Times and Wired. He maintains the blog Rough Type where he first explores themes surrounding technology that he later develops into formal publications. Carr is currently the Richmond Visiting Professor at Williams College in Massachusetts and was formerly the executive editor of the Harvard Business Review.