Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Surface provider

In The Atlantic, Nicholas Carr asks, via Kubrick, McLuhan, Nietzsche, Turing and Google, exactly what the www is doing to our grey matter:

My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

Although, as Carr points out, the magnificently named Hieronimo Squarciafico offered similarly gloomy prognostications about the long-term effects of Gutenberg's printing press on the 15th-century mind.

3 comments:

Rimshot said...

I'd just be happy if my mind could take in information at all and retain it for any significant amount of time.

Spinsterella said...

Yup. I can scan at the speed of light these days but my concentration is shot.

This is wrong and it's all the internets' fault. I'm off to read a book.

Tim F said...

True, Rimshot. Sorry, you were saying...?

How deliciously Luddite of you, Spinny.