I wish that when I would drop out of the blogosphere everyone else would too. I mean jeez, a few days with too much to do and no childcare, and what happens? My Bloglines is overflowing with unread posts. I hope to catch up within the next few days.
I did, however, get a chance to read this month’s Atlantic. And there was an article in it that really scared me. In “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Nicholas Carr writes:
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.
Oh, man. Me too! Of course, I’d been attributing this to my distracting lifestyle as a freelancer and mother of three, not to mention the fact that we ain’t any of us gettin’ any younger. Mr. Carr, however, suggests that the internet is actually rewiring our brains. Just like we lost the ability to memorize large tracts of poetry when we got the printing press, now we’re losing the ability to think deeply because we are inundated with “content” (quotation marks his).
Have you tried Twitter yet? It’s very fun, very addictive. You write little mini-blog posts, and each one is limited to 140 characters. That’s in the range of 20-25 words per post. Lately I have caught myself trying to compose my thoughts into tweets.
Scary.
8 Comments
Even zooming through Google Reader and Bloglines, I think, has the same effects on our brain. I had to stop myself to read actually what you were saying. :) And now that I have, I’m still not sure it’s all soaked in yet.
The internet in general is dumbing down our kids. For instance:
1. Spell check minimizes their need to understand how to spell.
2. Wikipedia is easy to cut and paste. And, who knows if it’s even right? Some kids even copy and article with the links still in blue.
3. Researching for a project no longer involves reading. It involves right-clicking.
Want an answer to something in class that you can’t find becasue you didn’t read? Just use your iPhone and connect to the internet. That’ll do it.
Interesting! I’ve also been exeriencing concentration problems while I’m reading. It’s like I’ve suddenly developed ADD. Perhaps the net does have something to do with it–we’re thinking in little bits and pieces instead of globally. It’s like our brains are working in soundbytes. I’m going to have to contemplate this further.
Last night I sat next to a senior administrator for the local defense contractor at a school council meeting. I told him about teaching middle school students to use the “dialect” of standard written English, and reminding them that they can’t use text message abbreviations or other informalities in their school papers. He said that almost all of the writing at his company is done for powerpoint presentations – bullets, fragments, short phrases – and that he finds it very difficult now to have to “go back” to using full sentences when writing a letter. Maybe Standard Written English will go out of style, and only medieval monks will preserve it in dusty old blogs that only they can read . . .
I’m ADD…I can’t blame it on Google…lol!
I’ve noticed this very tendency in myself over the past two years – I blamed it on menopause, but perhaps it’s the internet.
Scary thought.
My son, however, has the longest attention span of anyone I know (always has) and he also spends more time on the internet than anyone I know (always has).
So, hmmm.
I’m with you on wanting the blogosphere to slow down with me (or you). My time online is now limited (and my attention is focused elsewhere even when I am online). I don’t think I’d like Twitter much, although for my current state it might be good to have something that I don’t need to concentrate much for.
Unfinishedperson, ha ha ;) You’re right, though. I zoom through bloglines way too quickly.
Fred, ain’t it the truth. For my husband, “grading papers” means tracking down plagiarism. And finding it, way too often.
Chartroose, me too. And I used to think I suffered from attention SURFEIT. Now I’m not so sure.
Aunt Sara, speaking of writing for powerpoint presentations… have you seen this?
J. Kaye, go ahead and blame Google if you want. They can take it. :)
RR, I guess he’s the exception that proves the rule. :)
Crit… what do you mean? Did the baby come? [galloping over to your blog to see if there's an update...]