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. I think I know what's going on. For more than a decade now, I've been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet.
I think I know what's going on. For more than a decade now, I've been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet.
For me, personally, this is not how it works. I can still continuously read something, for many hours. It has just become hard to do that while I am online.
I think that they are used to having little else to distract them in their life and so now that there are multiple distractions their previous behaviours don't work. Personally I've always had a bit of a gad-about butterfly mind and so, now that are other distractions, my ability to focus isn't compromised cos I'm already used to ignoring distractions from my own head.
Or something keep to the Fen Causeway
I've always had a bit of a gad-about butterfly mind... my ability to focus isn't compromised... Or something
my ability to focus isn't compromised...
Or something
:-)
sined: a litterurry tipe
Reading long articles in web browsers is harder.
i find with books now that the light has to be just right, or there's too much glare off the white page, especially in strong sunlight or strong artificial light.
not to mention fonts... or cathode tube jitter on the old type monitors.
it's so wonderful to be able to adjust backlight, even the font itself, as some fit some moods...
what i find twitchy about the internet, is the hunger to be current, the news keeps surging off the screen as history accelerates, stay too long on one subject, another begs to be noted... as for long texts, yes, a lot easier with the computer off, or if the internet goes down, and i am reduced to catching up on some stuff i d/loaded and saved just for those occasions, like cold press pdf's fr'example. then it's easier, cuz you don't have the waiter distracting you from enjoying your dish, by teasing you to try this other site, or go back to ET and refresh the recent comments page....again...
i know, i'm nuts...
there's something obsessive about my clicking sometimes, like a chicken pecking corn..time rolls by, meals forgotten as the mental palate is educated and raised to ever more nuanced sources of stimulation.
at a certain point i have to push it away, it's overpowering otherwise!
i got a mac book pro, so to have fuller mobile recording facilities, and for simple reading, and blogging, it's heavy and hot.
how's that macbook air, colman? it sounds pretty attractive, i bet it digs less of a wedge in your belly too, tho' i was told it does its share of global warming, even with the flash drive. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
I use the internet to read long texts, and I haven't stopped readong books in long sessions - I just do it less often.
If you took away the internet tomorrow I suppose we'd all revert to reading more, and longer. It's a matter of habit, not "being made stupid". A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
Yeah, the title is dumb. But substitute 'mental routine' for 'habit' and refer to the alleged plasticity of the brain according to the author. I don't think the piece is all that wrong, apart from its negative characterisation of mental changes.
