"Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words," he wrote. "Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." In the book, which became a New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Carr explored the many ways that technology might be affecting our brains. Carr became particularly concerned about how the Internet seemed to be impairing our ability to think deeply and to focus on one subject for extended periods.  – Huffington Post

Dominant Social Theme: The Internet is a very dangerous place.

Free-Market Analysis: The book referred to in the above article excerpt became a Pulitzer Prize finalist, though we are not sure why. Every part of the thesis seems relatively un-provable, though it conjures up a nightmarish Internet that is changing our very personalities as we innocently tap on our keyboards.

Perhaps this is what attracted Pulitzer evaluators to it. After all, the Pulitzer is provided to mostly mainstream media journos and the 'Net has been responsible for decimating the mainstream media. By providing a warm welcome to the book and its thesis, Pulitzer Prize decision makers along with various literary critics were perhaps hoping to draw attention to what they consider the Internet's dark side.

In other words, the book's reception becomes part of a larger propaganda war being waged against the Internet and its impact by those who have been professionally affected by new communications technology and likely have suffered monetarily as a result.

Yes, there are certainly those who may hold a grudge against the 'Net – as silly as it sounds. People easily personify technology and grudges may be held against inanimate objects that represent larger socio-economic evolutions.

And so Nicholas Carr received a warm welcome and on the fifth anniversary of his book, sat down for an interview with the Huffington Post. Unsurprisingly, he soon unburdened himself of yet more dire warnings, claiming he was continually concerned with how the Internet's supple electronic coils were squeezing our old neurons.

In the book, I argued that what we created with computers and the Internet was a system of distraction. We got the great rewards of having basically unlimited information at our fingertips, but the cost of that was we created a system that kept us in a state of perpetual distraction and constant disruption. What psychologists and brain scientists tell us about interruptions is that they have a fairly profound effect on the way we think. It becomes much harder to sustain attention, to think about one thing for a long period of time, and to think deeply when new stimuli are pouring at you all day long.