The effects of the internet: Fast forward | The Economist

Final paragraph of a review of The Shallows

Mr Carr offers few prescriptions. The author himself retreated to an (unplugged) mountain hideout to write his book, but he thinks most people depend too much on the net for work and fun to do the same. And he fails to address the ways in which the internet acts like a drug. Other critics have probed this issue more deeply, notably Jaron Lanier, a virtual-reality pioneer, in a recent book, “You Are Not a Gadget”. Yet surely online bingeing is no different from eating too many sweets: its remedy is a matter of old-fashioned self-restraint.

The effects of the internet: Fast forward | The Economist