I'm having a problem and I can't figure it out!

I have this variable that has the uint8_t type (and yes I have to use this one for this project).

First I had the problem of outputting it:

uint8_t var = 4;
cout << var << endl;

would output a box. however the workaround is using:

cout << (int)var << endl;

But what I want to do is to shift the bits and the values do not make sense at all! Any ideas?