Books like The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

01

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

James Gleick · Science

The Information traces the history of information — as a concept, a technology, and a way of understanding the universe — from the talking drums of West Africa through the telegraph, the printing press, the telephone, and into the digital age.

A kindred science read.

02

Deep Work

Cal Newport · Self-help

Deep Work is Cal Newport's case that the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task is becoming both rarer and more valuable, and that people who cultivate it will thrive while everyone else stays stuck in shallow busywork.

Both dig into attention.

03

The Second Machine Age

Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee · Economics

The Second Machine Age is Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee's argument that digital technology has entered a qualitatively new phase — one in which machines can perform cognitive tasks previously reserved for humans, creating economic disruption and opportunity simultaneously.

Both dig into technology.

04

Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths · Psychology

Brian Christian is a writer and Tom Griffiths is a cognitive scientist, and together they argue that computer science has worked out rigorous solutions to many of the problems humans face every day — when to stop searching for a better option, how to manage your schedule, how to sort your memory — and that these solutions are both interesting and useful.

A kindred science read.

05

Weapons of Math Destruction

Cathy O'Neil · Science

Weapons of Math Destruction is mathematician and data scientist Cathy O'Neil's investigation of how algorithms — statistical models used to make decisions about people's lives — can perpetuate and amplify inequality rather than reduce it.

Both dig into technology.

06

The Distracted Mind

Adam Gazzaley and Larry D. Rosen · Science

The Distracted Mind brings together two distinct research traditions — cognitive neuroscience and psychology of technology — to explain why modern humans find sustained attention so difficult and what can be done about it.

Shares neuroscience and technology with The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

07

The Organized Mind

Daniel J. Levitin · Science

Daniel Levitin's argument is that the human brain's organizational architecture was built for a very different world — one with far fewer decisions, far less information, and far lower cognitive demand than the environment most people now navigate daily.

Shares neuroscience and attention with The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

08

Consciousness Explained

Daniel C. Dennett · Philosophy

Consciousness Explained is Daniel Dennett's attempt to replace what he calls the Cartesian Theater — the intuitive picture of consciousness as a single unified stream of experience observed by a self — with a model he calls Multiple Drafts.

Shares neuroscience and cognition with The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

09

Digital Minimalism

Cal Newport · Self-help

Digital Minimalism is Cal Newport's argument that most people's relationship with smartphones and social media is not freely chosen but engineered — the product of business models that monetize attention and design interfaces for compulsion rather than value.

Shares technology and attention with The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

10

Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

Nir Eyal · Self-help

Indistractable is Nir Eyal's argument that distraction is not a technology problem — it's a psychology problem.

Shares technology and attention with The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

11

Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again

Johann Hari · Psychology

Johann Hari's argument is that the collapse of attention is not a personal failing but a political crisis.

Shares technology and attention with The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

12

The Seven Sins of Memory

Daniel Schacter · Psychology

The Seven Sins of Memory is Daniel Schacter's account of the ways human memory routinely fails, organized around a taxonomy he developed to make the failures legible.

Shares neuroscience and cognition with The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.