Carr is a celebrated scholar who focuses on technology, economics, and cultural studies. He expanded this essay’s argument in a 2010 book entitled The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He also authored the 2014 book The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, which, according to his author website, “examines the personal and social consequences of our ever growing dependency on computers, robots, and apps.” Carr has carved out a place for himself as a thoughtful critic of the Internet age. All his works invite the reader to put a healthy amount of critical distance between themselves and the technology of the virtual age, instead of merely passively accepting these revolutionary and hugely individually- and socially-impactful technological developments.

According to her personal website, “Maryanne Wolf is a scholar, a teacher, and an advocate for children and literacy around the world. She is the Director of the newly created Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.” She and her work Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain are important references within Carr’s essay. Wolf’s