Nicholas G. Carr
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer who has published books and articles on technology, business, and culture. His book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
in General Nonfiction.
Career
Carr originally came to prominence with the 2003 Harvard Business Review article "IT Doesn't Matter" and the 2004 book Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business School Press). In these widely discussed works, he argued that the strategic importance of information technologyInformation technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
in business has diminished as IT has become more commonplace, standardized and cheaper. His ideas roiled the information technology industry, spurring heated outcries from executives of Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, Intel, Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
and other leading technology companies, although other commentators defended his position. In 2005, Carr published the controversial article "The End of Corporate Computing" in the MIT Sloan Management Review
MIT Sloan Management Review
MIT Sloan Management Review is a web site and magazine focused on the management of innovation. Published at the MIT Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan Management Review’s mission is to lead the conversation among thinkers, professors, and managers about the coming sea changes in management...
, in which he argued that in the future companies will purchase information technology as a utility service from outside suppliers.
Carr's second book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google, was published in January 2008 by W. W. Norton
W. W. Norton
W. W. Norton & Company is an independent American book publishing company based in New York City. It is well known for its "Norton Anthologies", particularly the Norton Anthology of English Literature and the "Norton Critical Editions" series of texts which are frequently assigned in university...
. It examines the economic and social consequences of the rise of Internet-based "cloud computing
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
" comparing the consequences to those that occurred with the rise of electric utilities in the early 20th century.
In the summer of 2008, The Atlantic
The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
published Carr's article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
"Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains" is a magazine article by technology writer Nicholas G. Carr highly critical of the Internet's effect on cognition. It was published in the July/August 2008 edition of The Atlantic magazine as a six-page cover story...
" as the cover story of its annual Ideas issue. Highly critical of the Internet's effect on cognition, the article has been read and debated widely in both the media and the blogosphere
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...
. Carr's main argument is that the Internet might have detrimental effects on cognition that diminish the capacity for concentration and contemplation.
Carr's most recent book, The Shallows, released in June 2010, develops this argument further. In addition to being a Pulitzer Prize nominee, the book appeared on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list and has been translated into 17 languages in addition to English.
Through his blog "Rough Type," Carr has been a critic of technological utopianism
Technological utopianism
Technological utopianism refers to any ideology based on the belief that advances in science and technology will eventually bring about a utopia, or at least help to fulfill one or another utopian ideal...
and in particular the populist claims made for online social production. In his 2005 blog essay titled "The Amorality of Web 2.0," he criticized the quality of volunteer Web 2.0
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
information projects such as Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
and the blogosphere
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...
and argued that they may have a net negative effect on society by displacing more expensive professional alternatives. In a response to Carr's criticism, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Wikia company....
admitted that the Wikipedia articles quoted by Carr "are, quite frankly, a horrific
embarrassment" and solicited recommendations for improving Wikipedia's quality. In May 2007, Carr argued that the dominance of Wikipedia pages in many search results represents a dangerous consolidation of Internet traffic and authority, which may be leading to the creation of what he called "information plantations". Carr coined the term "wikicrats" (a pejorative description of Wikipedia administrators) in August 2007, as part of a more general critique of what he sees as Wikipedia's tendency to develop ever more elaborate and complex systems of rules and bureaucratic rank or caste over time.
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
. Earlier in his career, Carr served as executive editor of the Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business Review is a general management magazine published since 1922 by Harvard Business School Publishing, owned by the Harvard Business School. A monthly research-based magazine written for business practitioners, it claims a high ranking business readership among academics, executives,...
. He was educated at Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
and Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
.
Books
- Digital Enterprise : How to Reshape Your Business for a Connected World (2001) ISBN 1-57851-558-0
- Does IT Matter? (2004) ISBN 1591394449
- The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (2010, W. W. Norton) ISBN 978-0-393-07222-8
External links
- Nicholas Carr's homepage
- Nicholas Carr's weblog
- The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains by Nicholas Carr
- IT Doesn't matter, originally published in Harvard Business Review
Opinions and reactions
- How Long Does IT Matter? (Err 404 - 12 feb 2011)
- The Argument Over IT May 1, 2004
- Does Nick Carr matter? August 21, 2004
- Nicholas Carr Strikes Again January 23, 2008 ITworld