Exchanging one form of media for the other
I don’t know if it’s because I read an Atlantic essay by Nicholas Carr today about how Google is making us stupid, but I just ordered a book (Superpowers, by David Schwartz). Though I probably read more now than I ever have before, this is the first book I’ve purchased since last summer. Last year I maybe finished six books in all, and so far this year I’ve read none. I haven’t felt an ounce of guilt for this, in fact I’ve openly mocked alarmist studies showing that book reading is on the decline. As I’ve said in other posts, I’m just dividing my time over other forms of media. Every week I try (and typically fail) to read my New Yorker subscription from cover to cover. And I read hundreds of blog posts, newspaper articles, and magazine pieces. I listen to podcasts and NPR and watch a few television shows and movies. This is perhaps why I’ve never opened up a twitter account; I simply have no desire to spread my media consumption any thinner.
But back to the Atlantic essay. Carr argues that it’s not just a matter of exchanging one form of media for another; Google and the web are actually rewiring our brains — to the point where we outright reject long-form literature:
Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.
It should be noted that I made it through his entire four-page essay, so there’s that.
For another look at how Google is changing the way we process and access information, read the brilliant Mr. Google’s Guidebook
