It's our choice, like anything else - some will let "Google make them stupid," others will not. And some will blame anything they can for what is nothing more than simple laziness and a failure to self-motivate.

The average American only reads a couple of books per year at this point, anyway. How much more stupidity could Google possibly cause?

i wonder if it's not some sublimal concept of control..whilst reading a book you are abandoning your control and accepting the information within the book without overt reservation ....somtimes the internet gives a bizare feeling of control...not conciously but as background noise......perhaps the internet is "Hotel Calfornia"

"you can check out any time you like ..but you can never leave"

browsing the internet sort of makes you feel like you've entered the world of Blade Runner an under cover cop perhaps searching out information..everything is faintly glamourised almost as if it was something froma film or worse still an advertisment..and advertisments tell you everything MUST be COOL...you shall obey the implanted desire for cool..to be cool..to glamourise in abstraction and to deride the ordinary .....a cruel mistress indeed...

a book is a book
it is a portal to another place far far away from that cruel mistress..LOL

how the hell should i know

I wouldn't use the forced reading of a book as an example.

As the grandson of a library who was infected with the reading virus at an early age, there are clearly different forms of experiences with books.

Some books can be read continuously for hours. When I like a novel it fits this. Or a history or non-fiction book that is telling a compelling story can do the same.

Other books are read in short bursts. I find these to be very interesting books, but ones that condense a large amount of information into a short space. Or ones that present truly paradigm-shifting views of the world. I still find the content of these books very interesting, but the content gets my brain to thinking so I only read in short bursts and then put the book down to think about and process what I've just read.

Then there are some books that just really aren't all that interesting. I haven't tried it yet, but if McClellan's book contains a lot of self-serving and blame-shifting explanations of what happpened, then that's probably in that category.

But, I wouldn't say Google is to blame. I'd bet a journalist of a hundred years ago who is forced to read the self-serving memoir of some government official on a deadline probably had a very similar reaction.

Poor choice of book to read, tho.

I've been hooked on books from the moment I picked up my first one and was able to read about Dick and Jane. Although with our public libraries here being closed for the past year, and my shrinking money not available for buying books, I've been worrying about my elderly brain going dead. Thankfully CD has been keeping it fairly active.

Only time I go to google is to find the answer to something not found in my personal reference library.

Unpluging the TV — An Act of Sedition!

My small city is having its annual library book sale, and they'll move thousands of used books throughout this week. People still read in towns like this one, not too small, not too big, and where they can get books at a reasonable price.
Maybe part the problem causing the fall-off is that books have become so ridiculously expensive that you can't afford to casually buy them, but instead have to make them a conscious purchase decision.
And yes, in my house, we turned a small bedroom into floor to ceiling library.
If it's important, you read.

Books have always been almost sacred to me. I have a large library that I have collected over six or seven decades. Some books I have read over and over for they transport me to better, or at least different worlds and realities. Many are reference books which I treasure more each year as I read the altered and redacted tripe that passes for history these days.

I gave up television years ago, but I do use the net, to check a reference or something written by a modern author, or recommended by a friend or correspondent.

To paraphrase Ratty in "Wind in the Willows," There is nothing, absolutely nothing like messing about in books..."

I read the Atlantic article, I thought it was stupid. Mr. Carr presented no evidence beyond subjective experiences and suggestions that we should "worry" about the effect of the internet. It was one of the most carelessly reasoned articles I've ever read in the Atlantic. I was surprised it made it in the magazine.

I would venture to guess that most people who read have experienced periods of difficulty concentrating to the extent they were able to concentrate as children or as teenagers. To turn such a general and probably nearly universal experience into evidence that a new technology has had sweeping fundamental effects on human consciousness reflects extraordinarily sloppy thinking. Seriously, how would one operationalize such a sweeping claim?

funny thing happened to me the other day. As i was walking by a bunch of books that i have stored in the garage, i heard a bell sound. At eleven at night in a suburban area. Look to my right and see Ernest Hemingway's FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. I took that as a sign to pick it up and start reading. Into chapter three now; i understand exactly what the author of this article is talking about though. I used to be able to sit down and read read read. Now i can only go one chapter at a time. Maybe the internet and computers are changing the way our brains are wired...

Really? I think that most people who read can concentrate well when they are children and teenagers because their minds are less cluttered and they are not burdened with responsiblities. Then when they grow up they find that it's more difficult to spend hours and hours reading--maybe because they have to work for a living...you think? Then somebody comes up with a lame reason like a new technology, and people say, "uuuh, yeah, me too! Doh!"

Honestly, how lame. Just think about what would be necessary to prove such a sweeping claim. First, you'd have to show that more people have trouble concentrating on reading after 1994 than before. How on earth would you do that? Then you'd have to eliminate alternative explanations….This is just a silly claim.

Books are not expensive. You can get almost any book you want on Amazon for a couple of dollars. Hey! Amazon makes us smart! -An
Act of Sedition!..

I agree with Mr Pitts, but I didn't realize this was a common experience.

I have always read a lot. I notice in the past 10 years though I don't read the classics...find it hard to focus. And they seem so wordy.

It's not TV since I don't watch it much. But I do spend a lot of time on the internet reading news, etc. Perhaps it does re-wire the brain somehow, similar to studies shown on youngsters using video games.

I do find it more difficult to focus on serious or wordy material.

Some of you responders missed the point. Mr. Pitts had to read this book for his job. As articulate as he is, I don't imagine it's what he chose for pleasure reading. It's been picked apart in the press (online) we really don't need to.

I find the internet a great tool to decide which books to read. Most of the information on the internet that is credible was first written in books. If you do not read books, you can not possibly discern what is true and what is not from the internet since there is so much disinformation. So people just pick and choose based on what fits their current ideology. I have purchased and read at least 300 non fiction books over the last 5 years. Journalists who do not read explain the sad state of journalism today.

One way to determine how much truth a book holds is by how difficult it is to get from amazon.com. If they do not carry it at all, ship it directly, or they tell you it ships in 2-4 weeks, and it is of rather recent vintage, then it has a truth the elites do not want to become widely known.

If a book is controversial, and is easily obtained, they want you to know, or at least some of us (since they know few people read books). I find that especially true with 9-11 books which are easy to get. They want us to know what they have done. Maybe it is to just get our names onto a database for future roundup. I threaten my siblings with sending them an Xmas present containing a 9-11 book if they don't send me something good. They fear getting on the database, so I make out well.

The internet from my observation has slowly been coming under control. Most of the articles, even on progressive sights, carry articles with themes the elite want to get out there. The dissent to the extent that it exists, is controlled dissent. Certain subjects are simply not permitted. Comments are more closely monitored, in some cases like Huffpo, to ridiculous levels of scrutiny and censorship.

That said, information is still widely available, but the closer to the truth you get, the searches lead you to more obscure sites. The more popular a site is, the less truth there is in it.

My sense is the internet as we know it is in it's last days. Soon your ISP will provide you with a bunch of options to choose from. The lower cost subscriptions will include access to only those sites approved by the elite, and this option will be the most popular choice as the economy deteriorates further. At the more expensive end, you will have unlimited access, but since the number of subscribers will be low, those sites not approved by the elite will find they are writing to themselves, since they will get few hits, and so they will shut down one by one.

What a wonderful piece. Indeed the internet is extravagant but unfortunately we humans are subject to a paralysis of choice when so much information is thrust in our faces.

As to the last post, the internet has the ability to change negatively, much in the way television has. So, take heed to the warning.

pieces like Carr's are good contributions to coping with the growing pains which the internet requires of its beneficiaries.

I was going to try to attempt to say something profound about my love of books, but Emily says it with perfection.

"A precious mouldering pleasure 't is
To meet an antique book
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,

His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.

His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old;

What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty
And Sophocles a man;

When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified,
Facts centuries before,

He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true:
He lived where dreams were born.

His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so."

Emily Dickinson

REBEL NOW: Thanks for sharing that. As a former English teacher I knew the best thing I could do was inspire a love of reading in youngsters. From tht, they would subliminally improve their vocab and grammatical skills, etc. The rote learning was impossible for most. To read is to enter other worlds.

The quantity of data we are exposed to on the Internet can tire the mind. I find I read less for leisure now, too... and even this site with the comments running past 100 often enough takes a big bite out of my time, and that's probably true for others. We want to keep up with the info, and at times we wish to respond; but carrying all this information is like walking around with weights on our arms and legs. At least for me it feels that way some times. I've noticed I give less time to my own creative writing, and am still in search of a balance there.

For me, the most delightful experience is to go into my bedroom, close the door, turn off the phone, and read a good book. The opportunity to meaningfully engage ideas and see the world in different ways is irreplaceable. It is one of the greatest gifts a parent can share with children.

Andrea345 - spot on. I had the same reaction to both pieces, and I am amazed that you had the same reaction despite being apparently a woman. Why were you not at a screening of "Sex in the City" or a shoe shop? [While we're stereotyping people based on unrepresentative samples].

And for the writer to use McLellan's drivel as an example? Spare me - I would rather stick a fork in my leg repeatedly, than read the ghost-written maunderings of a retired factotum. Bilge - and self-serving bilge of a type not seen since the last time Henry Kissinger committed his 'thoughts' to paper.

Had Mr Pitts remarked that he had found a dog-eared copy of "What Ho, Jeeves" in his attic and immersed himself in it for an afternoon, and snapped out of it to find that he had forgotten to retrieve his offspring from soccer practice, I should have liked his piece more.

Cheerio

GT
France

There is nothing to worry about, Internet or no Internet a good portion of the US population still believe that WMDs were found in Iraq. At least 15% of the US population believes that Obama is a Muslim, and with any luck that number may rise to 40% around election time.

To Rebelnow and other admirers of Emily Dickerson I would only add:

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away,
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears a Human soul.

GeoffreyTransom: And apparently one has to go outside the US to find anyone with the ability to think critically. I think I'll write an article about how in my experience Americans will say "me too" to anything they read on the internet, and that I'm worried about the condition of our educational system, and try to get it published in the Atlantic (which normally publishes excellent articles; I wonder if Mr. Carr has a buddy on the staff there?).

Andrea345
woman in the US

MMS - 5:36 pm

Like you, I also found Mr. Pitts' general description of the change in his reading habits familiar. As other comments reflect, there are many variables involved in how reading habits are acquired and modified. Mr. Pitts' vague correlation between preferring to spend time on the Internet at the expense of reading is hardly scientific, but I didn't find it annoying or off-putting as other readers did-- in fact, I thought, "Shit, this sounds just like me!"

I often spend time noodling around on the Internet, and returning to sites (like CD) over and over just to see if any new comments were added, etc. I KNOW that it would be more beneficial to knock it off and read instead of killing time surfing; in fact, I take myself to task for buying books, then leaving them unread for months and months.

"So turn off the fucking computer and pick up a book, already!" may be very satisfying to the unsympathetic, but there's something more going on here than my usual lack of self-discipline-- that factor is a constant.

My job does drain the energy and life out of me, such that reading on public transportation to and from work is often all the "print" reading I do in a week. And "free time" has its own demands. FWIW, I still have a fantasy that when I'm finally able to retire, I will head for that easy chair with a reading lamp and a stack of books!

Anyway, I appreciated this article because I, too, wondered if this was only happening to me.

What a revealing article! This is exactly what I'm experiencing too. I continue to buy books, but finish very few.

Little brother decribed it well - There is pernicious effect of the pace of work and pace of life outside of work, and of the internet.

And besides the loss of the art of literature, there is the loss of competence in various technical fields. The only way to master a subject is to read some books on it.

I read the first paragraph, then found my attention wandering, then kind of skimmed the rest. Something about the Internet, and some book, and something else. There might have been a magical faun or something, or maybe I was daydreaming. Anyway, I have to go Google the word "sedition." Sounds dirty!

Try giving up the fluoride... it accumulates in your brain, it affects your concentration and it makes you tired.

Unfortunately I've never seen this topic on CommonDreams... Read: http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/brain/

A good analysis that focuses on this argument is Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death."

He posits that it is only in print that sustained rational arguments can be delivered and understand.

With the electronic media, passive experiences with visual images, sound bites, and easy over entertainment seems to destroy the motivation and curiousity that only print can possibly satisfy.

Postman also examines the typical populat music put out by the virtual media and he notes that people only exposed to this cognitively limited and emotionally simple music find the music of Haydn, Bach or Mozart totally foreign.

Their hearts are too hardened, or partially hardened so it makes most of the consumers of virtual media's popular music products unable to reach out, or understand the masterworks of earlier Western music.

In fact, the development of a sophisticated musical system, one that set the ground work for cognitively complex musical forms such as symphonies, concerti, etc. was one of the few unique European contributions to world civilizations.

Of course, very few people of the West have (or desire to have) access to that contribution.

These contributions can't fit within the logic of the electric virtual culture.

Asdjk, I've given up fluoride toothpastes (Tom's of Maine is good, but make sure you're getting one of their no-fluoride toothpastes), and I've given up antiperspirants with aluminum. Have we been guinea pigs in some weird chemical experiment?

Balikirev, sounds very McLuhan-eque to me...

I am balakirev.

And I existed and composed music before someone named McLuhan was born.

Possibly, Finnegan's Wake can contribute to my understanding of the McLuhan-eque term if he or she found and connected me to a similar person and philosophy that existed during my time.

As you can observe, I do understand the basics of your virtual electric media: I can use a computer to add to CD discussions.

But you must remember, when I existed, there were no forms of electronic media. People like myself had to fill up our time composing or performing music, dancing, hating one ethnic group or another (and writing volumes of pamphlets and books supporting this hate), fucking (of which I distanced myself from during my retreat to extreme Russian Orthodoxy), supporting the rise of Russian nationalist symphonic, operatic, instrumentalist and chamber ensemble composers, and organizing non-institutional music concerts to selflessly promote their music.

And the above is only a smidgen of what I did with the vast amount of time afforded me because there were no electrical forms mass producing time-killing, hollow amusements.

Just think of what the peasants did with their time. They made things with their hands: folk music, folk art, danced, fucked, ate homemade crap,drank their tea and told each other folk tales...all of which emerged from their history, land and struggles.

Sorry, the literacy rate was pretty low.

Anyway, who needs to read when it comes to faith, the Czar and the Motherland. I believe a man named Tolstoy came to the same conclusion.

Now you possess all these electronic gadgets and aren't to any cultural traditions, your separated from the land that nurtures you, and you don't how to make anything with your hands.

I believe the thumb is the only part of the hand still in use.

What are you going to do if the electronic gadgets stop being entertaining slaves and, instead, they become your harsh masters?

Re MiMiCcS: What are the elusive books & web sites you are referring to? Very intriguing comments.

I've often wondered how my career in computing has ruined me, and permanently altered my brain's functioning. After many years of reading only to glean bits of information required to solve a problem, I struggle to read entire paragraphs now.

I also suffer from extreme impatience. I expect data to be delivered, programs to be compiled, NOW. Instantly !

Thanks to the internet, one doesn't need to have a career in any field that requires frequent daily use of computers to develop these same problems. :-(

Balikirev, your description of the Postman piece brings to mind Marshall McLuhan's "hot" and "cold" media discussion.

As for the rest of your discussion, well... I understand what you're saying. But I have attempted to stay connected to both family traditions, and to the land that nurtures us. It would be a long discourse to explain how, but suffice it to say, I can do more with my my hands than text on the cell phone I don't even own. This weekend, I'll be fixing our gas oven, weeding the blueberry and raspberry patches, and going to the local orchard for items to freeze and can. My wife thinks I'm very handy, in fact. But then, I come from a hardy strain of people used to living off the land, even in this age of modern convenience.

And I think Tolstoy was wrong: reading has expanded my faith.