Instead of simply asking "Why write?" (i.e., "Why, in this bewildering, distracted, digitized Brave New World we inhabit, why bothering going to the effort of writing for publication in the old-fashioned way?) lately I've been pondering a more fundamental question: How are new technologies changing us?
This question was posed in book I'm reading titled The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning to Watch Ourselves and Our Neighbors by Hal Niedzvieki. The author notes that when television first appeared, it was thought that it would have certain innocent, or beneficial, effects such as the introduction of high culture to the masses. (Not sure that was one of the presumed good effects Niedzviecki cited, but that was something being said in those days...) Twenty or thirty years down the road we realized television was having other, not so great, effects instead: increased obesity and violence in children, for exmple. Television changed society in unexpected ways.
Therefore a vital question we should be asking today, says Niedzviecki, is "How have these latest technologies been changing us?" His book explores just one change: the increased willingness, even desire, people today have to expose themselves (sometimes literally) to others. The book also explores a corollary phenomenon: the increased desire masses of people today have to "peep" into the lives and secrets of others. Peepers and exposers, says the author, feed off each other. No longer is being a "Peeping Tom" seen as reprehensible. We have changed.
Another alteration to society is cited in the article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicolas Carr/ (It appeared in the July/August 2008 issue of Atlantic Monthly and, ironically perhaps, can be accessed via Google. For some reason I couldn't link to it...) Carr talks about ways his own powers of concentration when reading "long form" articles and books have slipped and he blames the Internet. Our brains are being rewired, he believes. He cites anecdotes, experts, and one study, adding that we don't really know quite where it all is taking us. Perhaps it's not all bad. Time will tell.
The article caused me to ponder ways I might have changed from using the Internet. Yes, I believe my own ability to concentrate while reading books and long form articles has slipped.
Hmmm...
This question was posed in book I'm reading titled The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning to Watch Ourselves and Our Neighbors by Hal Niedzvieki. The author notes that when television first appeared, it was thought that it would have certain innocent, or beneficial, effects such as the introduction of high culture to the masses. (Not sure that was one of the presumed good effects Niedzviecki cited, but that was something being said in those days...) Twenty or thirty years down the road we realized television was having other, not so great, effects instead: increased obesity and violence in children, for exmple. Television changed society in unexpected ways.
Therefore a vital question we should be asking today, says Niedzviecki, is "How have these latest technologies been changing us?" His book explores just one change: the increased willingness, even desire, people today have to expose themselves (sometimes literally) to others. The book also explores a corollary phenomenon: the increased desire masses of people today have to "peep" into the lives and secrets of others. Peepers and exposers, says the author, feed off each other. No longer is being a "Peeping Tom" seen as reprehensible. We have changed.
Another alteration to society is cited in the article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicolas Carr/ (It appeared in the July/August 2008 issue of Atlantic Monthly and, ironically perhaps, can be accessed via Google. For some reason I couldn't link to it...) Carr talks about ways his own powers of concentration when reading "long form" articles and books have slipped and he blames the Internet. Our brains are being rewired, he believes. He cites anecdotes, experts, and one study, adding that we don't really know quite where it all is taking us. Perhaps it's not all bad. Time will tell.
The article caused me to ponder ways I might have changed from using the Internet. Yes, I believe my own ability to concentrate while reading books and long form articles has slipped.
Hmmm...
posted by Ted | 5:57 AM
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