The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brain

[blue_by_you]

" The printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources. Its ethic is that of the industrialist, an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and consumption―and now the Net is remaking

Comments

[anonymousblack]

anonymousblack: gleefully subverting your worst internet reading habits since 2001

because really

go ahead and try to skim that shit.

of course my current readership of two people might demonstrate that i'm too little too late.

[rosegardenfae]

Great quote, and, imho, absolutely valid.

[flying_blind]

I don't know. The majority of what I read on the Internets is about the same length as the newspaper and magazine articles I used to read back in pre-Internet days (and sometimes still do, though I can't afford a daily paper anymore, or as many magazine subscriptions.)

I suppose it's true of some people, but I also suspect that many of those some people never did read very much pre-Internet, and might actually be reading more now, though their choices of what to read often leaves much to be desired. Quality is not the Internet's forte.

[flying_blind]

Also, I think this article describes something far more distressing than any shortening of attention spans and scattering of focus portends.