Nicholas Carr
Author of The Shallows, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and other acclaimed books. Former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review.
Christine Rosen
Senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, columnist for Commentary magazine, and a cohost of The Commentary Magazine podcast
Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart
BONUS BOOK GIVEAWAY! We are giving away copies of Superbloom to randomly selected Zoom attendees. Details on the webinar registration page.
From the telegraph and telephone in the 1800s to the internet and social media in our own day, the public has welcomed new communication systems. Whenever people gain more power to share information, the assumption goes, society prospers. Nicholas Carr’s new book Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart tells a startlingly different story. As communication becomes more mechanized and efficient, it breeds confusion more than understanding, strife more than harmony. Media technologies all too often bring out the worst in us.
A celebrated commentator on the human consequences of technology, Carr reorients the conversation around modern communication, challenging some of our most cherished beliefs about self-expression, free speech, and media democratization. He reveals how messaging apps strip nuance from conversation, how “digital crowding” erodes empathy and triggers aggression, how online political debates narrow our minds and distort our perceptions, and how advances in AI are further blurring the already hazy line between fantasy and reality. Even as Carr shows how tech companies and their tools of connection have failed us, he forces us to confront inconvenient truths about our own nature. The human psyche, it turns out, is profoundly ill-suited to the “superbloom” of information that technology has unleashed.
Carr is the author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and four other acclaimed books. A former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, he writes for the Atlantic, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
Carr will be in conversation with Christine Rosen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on American history, society and culture, technology and culture, and feminism. Concurrently she is a columnist for Commentary magazine and one of the cohosts of The Commentary Magazine Podcast. She is also a fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and a senior editor in an advisory position at the New Atlantis.
This event suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.
Event Sponsors
- The Avery Coonley School
- Baker Demonstration School
- Beacon Academy
- Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School
- Brickton Montessori School
- British International School of Chicago, Lincoln Park
- British International School of Chicago, South Loop
- Catherine Cook School
- Chicago Jewish Day School
- Compass Health Center
- Countryside Day School
- Evanston Scholars
- Evanston Township High School D202
- The Family Institute at Northwestern University
- Family Service Center
- Foundation 65
- The Frances Xavier Warde School
- Francis W. Parker School
- Glencoe D35
- Glenview Public Library
- Gorton Center
- Haven Youth and Family Services
- Hyde Park Day School
- Illinois Student Assistance Commission
- Kenilworth D38
- Lake Bluff D65
- Lake Forest Academy
- Lake Forest Country Day School
- Latin School of Chicago
- Leo Catholic High School
- Lycée Français de Chicago
- Morgan Park Academy
- Near North Montessori School
- New Trier High School D203
- North Shore Country Day
- Northwestern University Office of Neighborhood and Community Relations
- Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy
- Pope John XXIII School
- Regina Dominican College Preparatory High School
- Resurrection College Prep High School
- Rogers Park Montessori School
- Roycemore School
- St. Bernard’s School
- Santa Clara University School of Law
- Science & Arts Academy
- The Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School
- Stevenson High School D125
- Township High School D113
- University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice
- Wilmette Public Library
- Wolcott College Prep
- Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart
- Youth & Opportunity United (Y.O.U.)
Upcoming Events
The Way of Play: Using Little Moments of Big Connection to Raise Calm and Confident Kids
Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D.
Psychotherapist, bestselling author, founder and executive director of The Center for Connection, and co-founder of The Play Strong Institute
Georgie Wisen-Vincent, LMFT
Nationally recognized play therapy expert and co-founder and head of faculty for the Play Strong Institute
Carly Andrews
Executive Director of The Alliance for Early Childhood
ON ZOOM
Out of Your Mind: The Biggest Mysteries of the Human Brain
Jorge Cham, Ph.D.
Daytime Emmy-nominated and best-selling cartoonist creator and the co-author of two popular science books
Dwayne Godwin, Ph.D.
Professor in the Department of Translational Neuroscience at Wake Forest University School of Medicine
ON ZOOM
Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart
Nicholas Carr
Author of The Shallows, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and other acclaimed books. Former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review.
Christine Rosen
Senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, columnist for Commentary magazine, and a cohost of The Commentary Magazine podcast
ON ZOOM