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How to Survive the Age of Distraction
In the 20th century, all the nightmare-novels of the future imagined that books would be burnt. In the 21st century, our dystopias imagine a world where books are forgotten. To pluck just one, Gary Steynghart's novel Super Sad True Love Story describes a world where everybody is obsessed with their electronic Apparat – an even more omnivorous i-Phone with a flickering stream of shopping and reality shows and porn – and have somehow come to believe that the few remaining unread paper books let off a rank smell. The book on the book, it suggests, is closing.
I have been thinking about this because I recently moved flat, which for me meant boxing and heaving several Everests of books, accumulated obsessively since I was a kid. Ask me to throw away a book, and I begin shaking like Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice and insist that I just couldn't bear to part company with it, no matter how unlikely it is I will ever read (say) a 1,000-page biography of little-known Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar. As I stacked my books high, and watched my friends get buried in landslides of novels or avalanches of polemics, it struck me that this scene might be incomprehensible a generation from now. Yes, a few specialists still haul their vinyl collections from house to house, but the rest of us have migrated happily to MP3s, and regard such people as slightly odd. Does it matter? What was really lost?
The book – the physical paper book – is being circled by a shoal of sharks, with sales down 9 per cent this year alone. It's being chewed by the e-book. It's being gored by the death of the bookshop and the library. And most importantly, the mental space it occupied is being eroded by the thousand Weapons of Mass Distraction that surround us all. It's hard to admit, but we all sense it: it is becoming almost physically harder to read books.
In his gorgeous little book The Lost Art of Reading – Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time, the critic David Ulin admits to a strange feeling. All his life, he had taken reading as for granted as eating – but then, a few years ago, he "became aware, in an apartment full of books, that I could no longer find within myself the quiet necessary to read". He would sit down to do it at night, as he always had, and read a few paragraphs, then find his mind was wandering, imploring him to check his email, or Twitter, or Facebook. "What I'm struggling with," he writes, "is the encroachment of the buzz, the sense that there's something out there that merits my attention."
I think most of us have this sense today, if we are honest. If you read a book with your laptop thrumming on the other side of the room, it can be like trying to read in the middle of a party, where everyone is shouting to each other. To read, you need to slow down. You need mental silence except for the words. That's getting harder to find.
No, don't misunderstand me. I adore the web, and they will have to wrench my Twitter feed from my cold dead hands. This isn't going to turn into an antedeluvian rant against the glories of our wired world. But there's a reason why that word – "wired" – means both "connected to the internet" and "high, frantic, unable to concentrate".
In the age of the internet, physical paper books are a technology we need more, not less. In the 1950s, the novelist Herman Hesse wrote: "The more the need for entertainment and mainstream education can be met by new inventions, the more the book will recover its dignity and authority. We have not yet quite reached the point where young competitors, such as radio, cinema, etc, have taken over the functions from the book it can't afford to lose."
We have now reached that point. And here's the function that the book – the paper book that doesn't beep or flash or link or let you watch a thousand videos all at once – does for you that nothing else will. It gives you the capacity for deep, linear concentration. As Ulin puts it: "Reading is an act of resistance in a landscape of distraction.... It requires us to pace ourselves. It returns us to a reckoning with time. In the midst of a book, we have no choice but to be patient, to take each thing in its moment, to let the narrative prevail. We regain the world by withdrawing from it just a little, by stepping back from the noise."
A book has a different relationship to time than a TV show or a Facebook update. It says that something was worth taking from the endless torrent of data and laying down on an object that will still look the same a hundred years from now. The French writer Jean-Phillipe De Tonnac says "the true function of books is to safeguard the things that forgetfulness constantly threatens to destroy." It's precisely because it is not immediate – because it doesn't know what happened five minutes ago in Kazakhstan, or in Charlie Sheen's apartment – that the book matters.
That's why we need books, and why I believe they will survive. Because most humans have a desire to engage in deep thought and deep concentration. Those muscles are necessary for deep feeling and deep engagement. Most humans don't just want mental snacks forever; they also want meals.
I'm not against e-books in principle – I'm tempted by the Kindle – but the more they become interactive and linked, the more they multitask and offer a hundred different functions, the less they will be able to preserve the aspects of the book that we actually need. An e-book reader that does a lot will not, in the end, be a book. The object needs to remain dull so the words – offering you the most electric sensation of all: insight into another person's internal life – can sing.
So how do we preserve the mental space for the book? We are the first generation to ever use the internet, and when I look at how we are reacting to it, I keep thinking of the Inuit communities I met in the Arctic, who were given alcohol and sugar for the first time a generation ago, and guzzled them so rapidly they were now sunk in obesity and alcoholism. Sugar, alcohol and the web are all amazing pleasures and joys – but we need to know how to handle them without letting them addle us.
The idea of keeping yourself on a digital diet will, I suspect, become mainstream soon. Just as I've learned not to stock my fridge with tempting carbs, I've learned to limit my exposure to the web – and to love it in the limited window I allow myself. I have installed the programme "Freedom" on my laptop: it will disconnect you from the web for however long you tell it to. It's the Ritalin I need for my web-induced ADHD. I make sure I activate it so I can dive into the more permanent world of the printed page for at least two hours a day, or I find myself with a sense of endless online connection that leaves you oddly disconnected from yourself.
TS Eliot called books "the still point of the turning world". He was right. It turns out, in the age of super-speed broadband, we need dead trees to have fully living minds.
63 Comments so far
Show Alland, at night (and other times too, actually) they are the best way to focus the mind to sleep ..............
and they put the imagination to work in a way pre-imagined interpretations known as movies could ever do ... although it is often fun to read "the book" after having seen "the movie" so that the vampires and werewolves, etc have more vivid physical form ... although as you get more acquainted with actors and actresses you can start doing your own casting as you read further ...
I still have the copy of Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosphy which I bought in 1961. It is a paperback edition, and the binding is nearly shot. A few years ago I saw that someone was selling a hardback edition on Ebay, so I bought it.
When it arriived, I realized that I could not get rid of the paperback edition because I had been annotating it for all those years. Notes written in the margins tell me something about what I was thinking (and who I was) over the decades. Transcribing those notes to the new edition would take much too long - reading them is what I do, not copying them.
So I sold the hardback edition and still have the original. I cannot imagine valuing an e-book as much.
Thank you for this article. Paper books seem to get too little respect these days.
About the dead trees...I often think about the toxic chemicals in all of the electronic devices.
Paper books seem to humanize us - electronic devices seem to dehumanize. Don't ask me why. It just seems that way. (Well here is one explanation - writing a book takes a lot of thought about how the reader will interpret the words. Electronic devices are so instantaneous that too often not enough thought is given to a comment or statement before it is made.)
Reading is a healthy pleasure. There is nothing like it, and I don't intend to get a Kindle, though many people love having one.
Reading books can save us from teetering toward insanity when we read every day about the insane politicians' insane plans for us. Putting pen to paper focuses the mind, too. We should always have one book or another that we pick up each day to read for a bit, and there's nothing more pleasurable than drifting off to sleep with a book in your hand.
Mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness: "an antidote to theism, a cure for sentimental piety, a scalpel for excising the tumor of metaphysical belief."
— Stephen Batchelor (Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist)
(And a dash of concern about potential Amazon title censoring.)
You can't pick your teeth with the corner of a Kindle. I never have to worry about keeping the batteries charged in my books. A Kindle can hold approximately 3,500 books, but with that many paper books I can make a lot of ramps and tunnels for my nephew's hot wheels, but not even one with a single Kindle. Used stacks of my books as end tables when I was young and poor, that would be hard to do with a Kindle. I like the smell of old paper and bindings. I am not ready to give up paper books yet.
There's a tactile, sensory experience from reading a real book.The pages in different books have different textures and fragrances, depending upon the age of the book. I have happy, lasting childhood memories of stuffing my nose into my grandparents' books in the shelves and being reminded me of plums. Recently, I returned to reading a novel in bed, propped up with pillows and an excellent reading light, gratefully. It was joy to float away in the pages in the quiet. I felt happy, safe, sane. Thanks for this ode to a love affair. To me, the internet and its gadgetry are completely different. While useful and excellent in myriad ways, the internet is a head trip. In sharp contrast, a real book opens and touches my heart. In my experience, Carlos Castenada was correct. He said, "If your path has no heart it is of no use."
I've read laments like this for years, about the death of books and reading, and I've seen the evidence piling up all over supporting the position. I read books about the end of books in the '90s, when I owned and operated a small independent bookstore that finally went the way of all dinosaurs, gobbled up by Amazon and the big box stores, which are now themselves going bankrupt (we never did) because they've grossly overextended like most capitalist enterprises whose eyes are bigger than their brains.
Sven Birkerts was one of the best critics of this dooming trend back then, warning of the incipient dangers of the newborn internet and how it was dragging good readers into its web of perpetual temptation and away from books. And now we have Twitter and Facebook to compound the problem, when many have abandoned the dated and boring obligations of even email.
I cannot understand the attractions. What's the big deal about twittering vapid, evanescent messages back and forth to all and sundry about ephemeral nonsense? That can only appeal to those who have lost the capacity already for the sustained attention and concentration of reading books. It fits our ADHD era, when being always frenetically distracted is a sign of vitality and intelligence, the exact opposite of how we once perceived those traits.
Kindle isn't going to liberate us any more than Twitter, but both will teach us to devalue books even further, and soon they'll be entirely eliminated from our already gutted and mostly meaningless "educational" system. Poverty of mind and spirit will be our inheritance from this childish fascination with electronic gizmos. But I've found that trying to battle against it is like yelling at a tornado.
At bottom, it's all a function of market fundamentalism, and why expect to put the brakes on capitalism in one arena (electronic displacement of books) when it's proven impossible in so many others, such as the addiction to perpetual war and all its corrupt profit-taking? If there's more money in e-books and all their dazzlingly distracting offspring, than there is in paper books, then nothing can stop them. The digital blizzard is propelled by an idiot wind that sweeps aside all criticism, preparing us for the coming cultural wasteland.
EPHRAIM: A lot of wisdom in your rant. Thanks for sharing it.
“What's the big deal about twittering vapid, evanescent messages back and forth to all and sundry about ephemeral nonsense? That can only appeal to those who have lost the capacity already for the sustained attention and concentration of reading books. It fits our ADHD era, when being always frenetically distracted is a sign of vitality and intelligence, the exact opposite of how we once perceived those traits.?”
All true, Ephraim, and I've also been musing about how the wired world has changed people: I’ve watched in horror as cell phones have altered public space, particularly among students. I’ve heard students having heated cellphone fights with their boyfriends in crowded college elevators (“You did TOO sleep with her!”) and parents, etc. Once I was with a student on an elevator going to the lobby, where my student’s friend was waiting for her, and she felt the need to call him to tell him she was on the elevator, I guess to spare him the 10-second suspense. It’s still unsettling to me to sit next to someone who is having a conversation on the cellphone. Remember the concept of a door on a phone booth?
What this all seems to mean is a redefinition of public and private space, and also, worse, the option of not being where one actually is. Having one more acceptable reason to NOT converse with those around obviously works against widening community, and people use that option to keep new interactions to a minimum, whether due to discomfort with those they can’t relate to or to mask shyness. In other words, they encourage insularity. I can tell how successful a class is by how many reach for their cellphones before and after classes, or during breaks. If they are really engaged they clump together and extend the class. The cellphones stay in their pockets.
"agree. A friend of mine in Seattle said last month that he was convinced that language was dead--that now it's just yelps and grunts. Sure is on chat sites, twitter and so forth."
Bollocks. Verbal conversation has always been much less formal than written conversation. Chat sites, twitter etc, are verbal.
"Technology has blasted the last few shreds of brain matter out of the skulls of our species."
So go live in a tree or a cave. Naked.
rfloh wrote:
"Chat sites, twitter etc, are verbal."
Verbal diarrhoea perhaps. ;-)
" Remember the concept of a door on a phone booth? "
In addition to the door on a phone booth, people waiting to use the phone usually stood several feet away from the booth to avoid overhearing the conversation.
I understand when I hear young people babbling away on their smart phones, but I don't understand middle-aged people doing the same. They should remember when privacy was valued, but apparently it is not something they care to think about now.
Good Comment Ephraim.
In answer to your question:
"I cannot understand the attractions. What's the big deal about twittering vapid, evanescent messages back and forth to all and sundry about ephemeral nonsense?"
This is because we have all been raised with advertizing and programmed to do this.
I try to avoid all negative programming. I haven’t watched television since the 1970's.
I highly recommend to everyone that killing your TV is the first step to mind freedom.
You can get almost all the information you need at the public library.
"You can get almost all the information you need at the public library."
No, you really can't, unless your public library is unlike any public library I have been to. Even at libraries at large academic institutions, you sometimes still won't get what you need, especially if you are looking for information on a more specialist subject. It is hilarious that on a thread when some posters whine about "cultural wastelands", their are posters who agree with that whine, and yet, claim that you can get almost all the information you need at the public library.
Rflh: CD's favorite fact checker.
How about this, for all the times you post with such a condescending attitude. You said:
"some posters whine about "cultural wastelands", their are posters who agree..."
It's THERE are posters who agree.
And persons pointing out the downside of technology--given the dearth of empathy apparent in our nation--need not be accused of being WHINERS. By suggesting their honest critiques are tantamount to whining, is to "baby" the content of their perspectives and specific points of view.
ELIZABETH: Interesting posts, but in one further down, you use the word "vacinity" for "vicinity." Were you thinking of vaccinations, or another V word?
SR, CD's resident ad hominem poster.
"It's THERE are posters who agree.
"
Yes. A typo. BFD.
This is very funny!
Most libraries have internet service which will give anyone access to the names and addresses of libraries, universities and research institutions all over the world.
You can often write to them and get unpublished research papers if you can't find them online, which often you can; if you try.
Libraries also have inter-library loans, and will request other libraries to send information, and books if you request that. The money you save on television machines, cable and direct TV can be used to take a train to a university library in another city, and do some research yourself.
There are also people working at libraries that are happy to show us how to use libraries and will teach us how to spell and use correct grammar too!
Try getting that from your TV!
Well done SiouxRose! Your post was well written as always and you haven't been using as many negative words as you usually do.
Brava!
p.s. when I read your posts I always think of a B word.
I'll giveup "Deadliest Catch" when they pull the remote from my cold dead fingers. lol
>^^<
It has been years since I have had a TV or much watched it.
As for - "You can get almost all the information you need at the public library", well that is somewhat true if you have money. Interlibrary loans can be expensive. University and other libraries often have access fees. Printing, and photocopying assuming that you ignore the laws against it, are expenses that add to the cost of research. Many sources on the internet require you to pay for electronic copies of their often short articles. For what they charge they could send a printed copy by the post. Obviously rich people are more equal than poor people when it comes to research.
Yes, by all means, kill the TV. First, you recover your attention span. Second, you distance yourself from the excessive commercialism of our society. Third, if you are like me, you will find that your sleep is much deeper and your dreams much more vivid, and more personal. You will just feel better. Your time is more your own. And, very likely, you will find other -- better -- sources of the news, information and entertainment we all need.
Terrific comment, Ephraim. "Digital blizzard propelled by an idiot wind" decribes it perfectly.
There is nothing logical or humanitarian about the "digital blizzard". It's raw, cynical, in- your- face, bullying marketing. It is sold as "cool", and that will sell just about anything. (Of course, it is coupled with the ubiquitous "It is inevitable, so you had better get with it".) "Cool" is a religion in the U.S. It is also a cultural quality of immense utility to the controlling economic and political classes.
BTW, I have no problem being labelled "antediluvian" by a vapid, fresh-faced marketing major or a "well-meaning liberal" or a "cool" patron of Starbuck's.
I won't label you as antediluvian.
I will label you as someone who is unable to think critically.
"I will label you as someone who is unable to think critically."
-- Why would you do that? Do you think you can make that type of judgment based on the 2 short paragraphs that he wrote? And who made you the keeper of throwing out such fucking garbage-based insults ?
Stop being such of douche bag.
removed. not productive on my part.
"I've read laments like this for years, about the death of books and reading, and I've seen the evidence piling up all over supporting the position. I read books about the end of books in the '90s, when I owned and operated a small independent bookstore that finally went the way of all dinosaurs, gobbled up by Amazon and the big box stores, which are now themselves going bankrupt (we never did) because they've grossly overextended like most capitalist enterprises whose eyes are bigger than their brains. "
Big box stores are going bankrupt not because no one is buying books, they are going bankrupt because people are buying books from Amazon, and also via used book sellers on Amazon marketplace.
"Sven Birkerts was one of the best critics of this dooming trend back then, warning of the incipient dangers of the newborn internet and how it was dragging good readers into its web of perpetual temptation and away from books. And now we have Twitter and Facebook to compound the problem, when many have abandoned the dated and boring obligations of even email. "
Make an argument WHY email is better, instead of just claiming it is better.
The so called death of books and reading is grossly exaggerated by people like you. On the contrary, literacy, writing skills have probably INCREASED due to the internet and the electronic devices you whine about.
"I cannot understand the attractions. What's the big deal about twittering vapid, evanescent messages back and forth to all and sundry about ephemeral nonsense? That can only appeal to those who have lost the capacity already for the sustained attention and concentration of reading books. It fits our ADHD era, when being always frenetically distracted is a sign of vitality and intelligence, the exact opposite of how we once perceived those traits. "
What is the attraction of conversation? All this talking fits our ADHD era, when being always frenetically distracted is a sign of vitality and intelligence, the exact opposite of how we once perceived those traits. We should communicate entirely via hand written letters, written using quills.
"Kindle isn't going to liberate us any more than Twitter, but both will teach us to devalue books even further, and soon they'll be entirely eliminated from our already gutted and mostly meaningless "educational" system. Poverty of mind and spirit will be our inheritance from this childish fascination with electronic gizmos. But I've found that trying to battle against it is like yelling at a tornado. "
Bollocks. Electronic books have different uses from paper books. As for education and electronic devices, again bollocks. You can do far more and far more comprehensive research, reviews of literature, much more quickly with electronic devices than with just paper alone. Can electronic devices be misused? Yes, obviously, the overuse of powerpoint, at the expense of chalk and blackboard, in education being an example. Yes, your position is like shouting at a hurricane . So. maybe you should rethink your position.
"At bottom, it's all a function of market fundamentalism, and why expect to put the brakes on capitalism in one arena (electronic displacement of books) when it's proven impossible in so many others, such as the addiction to perpetual war and all its corrupt profit-taking? "
Because at bottom, it is not a function of capitalism. See for example, Project Gutenberg.
"If there's more money in e-books and all their dazzlingly distracting offspring, than there is in paper books, then nothing can stop them. The digital blizzard is propelled by an idiot wind that sweeps aside all criticism, preparing us for the coming cultural wasteland."
No it isn't.
rfloh,
I won't accuse you of being unable to think critically because the few short posts about this article hardly provide enough evidence one way or another. As I have been impressed by some of you other posts, I tend to think it is more a matter of your ignoring or being ignorant of certain factors in this case.
There is evidence that the "wired" life rewires the brain. In fact, in the field of "neuro-plasticity", as Nicholas Carr says in his book, "The Shallows", "If, knowing what we know today about the brain's plasticity, you were to set out to invent a medium that would rewire our mental circuits as quickly and thoroughly as possible, you would probably end up designing something that looks and works a lot like the internet." What this rewiring entails developmentally and culturally (even politically) *is* a matter for concern.
You may say that it may be good to rewire the mental circuits, but evidence (in the very little research that's been done) shows that getting digitally wired leads to distraction and chopped-up, superficial thinking. This has also been what I have observed personally having recently returned to a part-time job in a college after being away for many years. The strange mental disabilities in processing and using information - even among those who were good at finding it - that I encountered in students shook me up a bit. I talked with colleagues about it and discovered that it a was subject of wide discussion among them. I did a little research (yes, in some of the huge online databases) and discovered that it was by no means a trivial concern.
If you don't think the ebook industry is the primary force behind ebooks, I believe you haven't had enough experience on the receiving end. I should make it clear that I am not "against" ebooks. I love Project Gutenberg and archive.org. I think research databases are wonderful. Some good things have happened in the digital revolution. But when you say ebooks and real books have different purposes, you are certainly going against the industry tide which is quite obviously to replace books. It has been personally said to me by a large number of ebook vendors and promoters that books are of things of the past and will "inevitably" be superseded. This is always said with the same uncritical, wide-eyed, "magic of the digital revolution" style foisted upon us through the corporate media every day. It's bullying and it permeates the society.
I'm concerned that we are losing some "liberalizing" influences and practices (including book reading) by the nature of the medium and its effects of chopping up and atomizing experience. You may not share my concerns, but I don't think it is correct to assign it to an inability to think critically.
OK. First thing, I apologise for what I said about you.
I do not disagree that the "wired" life rewires the brain. The reality is that life in general constantly rewires the brain. Not just the "wired" life. Reading books, playing music, playing sports, etc, all rewire the brain to some extent. Humans are a product of nature and nurture.
"You may say that it may be good to rewire the mental circuits, but evidence (in the very little research that's been done) shows that getting digitally wired leads to distraction and chopped-up, superficial thinking. This has also been what I have observed personally having recently returned to a part-time job in a college after being away for many years. The "
I agree with this, to some extent. I personally find that if I have to do very close very careful reading, I much prefer doing so with paper, than from a screen. I am not saying that the internet, electronic devices, are entirely good and their are no negative effects. IME, ebooks, online journals, etc, are good if you need to do research. But reading those journals closely, once you have found what you are looking for, is much better done with paper.
"If you don't think the ebook industry is the primary force behind ebooks, I believe you haven't had enough experience on the receiving end."
The thing is that the ebook industry have done a piss poor job at attracting people to use ebooks, what with all their (proprietary) attempts to lock their ebooks etc. I have been interested in ebooks since the concept was first thought of, primarily because of portability. Especially with reference type / textbook type scientific books, it is very usefull to be able to carry around the equivalent of the science section of a library around with you. So I do have some experience with using them. If anything, IMO, the book publishers would much prefer that the concept of ebooks never existed.
"But when you say ebooks and real books have different purposes, you are certainly going against the industry tide which is quite obviously to replace books. It has been personally said to me by a large number of ebook vendors and promoters that books are of things of the past and will "inevitably" be superseded. This is always said with the same uncritical, wide-eyed, "magic of the digital revolution" style foisted upon us through the corporate media every day. It's bullying and it permeates the society.
"
The media can try to foist as much as they want. They can't change the realities. When the realities of ebooks are changed, ie, easily readable anywhere, anyplace, won't get utterly ruined if you get it wet, then ebooks might replace paper books.
"Some good things have happened in the digital revolution"
We don't disagree much then. In anycase, IMO, one of the worst things about the digital revolution isn't ebooks, but PowerPoint. If you are worried about chopping up and atomising experience, and the inability to think critically, then, join the crusade against the (over)use of PowerPoint in classrooms.
rfloh,
Thanks for the thoughtful followup. I will happily join the crusade against the overuse of PowerPoint.
We still have some things to hash out. Maybe in commenting on related articles in the future, we can go into this a little more.
"The reality is that life in general constantly rewires the brain." That's the basis of my point, that "neural-plasticity" is the condition that we need to take into consideration in any discussion of the effect of media on the brain. It's the quality and nature of specific media environment and how it is used that affects the quality and nature of the wiring. Just saying that neuro-plasticity exists (which is, in essence, what you are saying) doesn't address the specific nature of the "wiring" and its social consequences.
I think we certainly will agree on the the problem of "proprietary rights" and related issues with the distributors of ebooks. I happen to think it is a larger problem (in contrast with real books) than it appears that you do. This ties in to your statement, "The media can try to foist as much as they want. They can't change the realities."
This seems to indicate that you believe there is a free-for-all evolution of technology which is inevitably leading to greater human possibilities and freedom, kind of a technological libertarianism. The corporate media is not divorced and separate from corporate America and "realities" are not out there on their own. The sophisticated techniques of marketing *do* affect reality and *do* reflect the corporate vision. Part of the marketing technique, I am convinced, is precisely what Ephraim denoted as a creating a "storm"..."unstoppable". How nice for the digital industry.
I'm saying, step back, examine (on many levels) what's going on here. I don't think there has been nearly enough of it. (I am not saying, "Let's all go and live in caves", although that's what the survivors a century from now will probably be doing.)
"That's the basis of my point, that "neural-plasticity" is the condition that we need to take into consideration in any discussion of the effect of media on the brain. It's the quality and nature of specific media environment and how it is used that affects the quality and nature of the wiring. Just saying that neuro-plasticity exists (which is, in essence, what you are saying) doesn't address the specific nature of the "wiring" and its social consequences."
Sure. But the point is that we are still at stage where science does not know much about the actual details of neural plasticity, (and also genomics), to properly address the quality and nature of the wiring. For example, some scientists contend that reading, doing things that involve (intense) mental activity might prevent alzheimers. This will not surprise most people. But, there are studies that indicate that complex PHYSICAL activity, such as dance, gymnastics, weightlifting exercises, can achieve the same effect too. This WILL surprise quite a lot of people. The details of how this works are not properly known.
"This seems to indicate that you believe there is a free-for-all evolution of technology which is inevitably leading to greater human possibilities and freedom, kind of a technological libertarianism. The corporate media is not divorced and separate from corporate America and "realities" are not out there on their own. The sophisticated techniques of marketing *do* affect reality and *do* reflect the corporate vision. Part of the marketing technique, I am convinced, is precisely what Ephraim denoted as a creating a "storm"..."unstoppable". How nice for the digital industry."
That is not my argument. I do not contend that the media, that advertising, etc, have no effect at all. My position is that of course there are effects, not least because if there are no effects corporations would not spend billions a year on marketing. But, while marketing can cause influence, it cannot solely make people want to switch form paper to e, unless there is something about e that makes more desireable than paper. For example, take junk food. Marketing does play a role in getting people to eat junk food. But, at the same time, many humans tend to crave foods high in fats and sugars, foods that provide lots of easy calories, because that might be how we have evolved. Marketing plays a role, but is not solely responsisble
Excellent points, Arry. You make the case better than I did. The part about the brain being rewired by the internet (also cell phones) is instructive, but I doubt rfloh is capable of receiving such instruction.
First, Mr. Know-it-All, big box stores are going bankrupt for a number of reasons. Amazon is only one of them, and Amazon has become the WalMart of the Internet. They sell thousands of things besides books and Kindle, and have been doing so for years. They would have never gotten as big as they are if they'd stuck to books, partly because book sales ARE NOT what they used to be.
Borders and Barnes & Noble took a gamble and lost. One of their top priorities was to drive all small independents out of business, because most real book buyers preferred the independents, and that's where most book sales were going prior to the advent of Amazon and the big boxes. Also, both Amazon and the big box stores were able to completely change the publishing industry. By the late nineties it had become nearly impossible to get anything published at a major publisher unless it had best seller written all over it. Borders and B & N had amassed the power to dictate what would be published on this basis. If they declared a MS not best seller material, the publishers would reject it. This happened thousands of times. I know, I was in the industry for 8 years.
The big boxes cared only about making money, surprise surprise. If they couldn't sell a title in the millions, it wouldn't get published. This is why publishing has become just another infotainment industry. Before the whole shebang was taken over by exactly the same kind of capitalists as every other industry, publishers actually cared about content and quality. They cared about writers. Not any more. If you don't believe me, ask a few writers. But maybe they'll just start "whining" about things electronic.
What I said about Twitter, Facebook and email doesn't happen to include any assertion that "email is better." I was merely making an observation, which to you is obviously a species of "whining." And prove that literacy and writing skills have improved because of the internet and all the electronic devices you have such a hardon for, instead of just making the assertion. Do you pay attention to the writing skills on display here, for example? Some of them are superb, imaginative, highly advanced in many ways, and some are dreadful. Probably most are far worse than the writing skills of the general public 50 years ago. Possibly this escapes your notice, since it might dampen your enthusiasm for all the electronic distractions you advocate.
Of course, if I say this, it means I think we should all live in caves and write with quill pens. Did you learn your insult skills at Twitter 101? Read Hari's article again. Take it up with him. The rest of your objections are so flimsy and hollow, it's not worth wasting time on them.
All nostalgia aside, isn't control the real danger here? When all reading is electronically-generated it will be simple to manipulate original texts or eliminate certain "books" altogether and of course, keep a record of exactly what you read or want to read.
I think these are the far scarier scenarios, but I'm just your typical old man conspiracy theorist, I suppose.
The control of information is very important to a fascist society, so I don't think you're being paranoid. You'd be naive if you didn't consider the possibility. If the move toward kindle-type devices reaches a certain saturation, it would be much easier to alter books or make them unavailable. As our freedoms dwindle, this is worth considering.
In fact, self-censorship of libarary sytems is already in place. For instance, in teaching college I've noticed that the information available through the library retrieval system is edited. Once a student started talking about MK-Ultra, so I went home and looked up information on it through the university system, and found I came up absolutely empty. I wonder what else the university system bars.
Through university computers, I also get more warnings about unsafe sights, such as some progressive sites.
You think it is easier to alter and control the distribution of e books, compared to physical books that can be seized?
Obviously it is easier to go after electronic information. Actual books are traded and lent without records.
I suggest you talk to someone from the ex USSR. Or some other authoritarian countries: authoritarian countries where books need the approval of government to be published, where newspaper publishers need the permissions of government to publish.
Paper books need to be published physically. Or, if they are published in another country, they need to be moved in. Thus, all you need to do to censor them is to control the publishing (facilities), Or control the sale and distribution. Yes, that will not stop every single copy, but it will stop mass distribution.
Now, since it is SOOO obviously easier to stop electronic distribution, tell me how you would go about it.
"All nostalgia aside, isn't control the real danger here? When all reading is electronically-generated it will be simple to manipulate original texts or eliminate certain "books" altogether and of course, keep a record of exactly what you read or want to read."
Well of course you can manipulate to your heart's content. But how do you prevent someone from getting the unedited version?
"eliminate certain "books" altogether and of course, keep a record of exactly what you read or want to read."
How?
And come on. It isn't as if the same things have not been done with paper books, via censorship. What do you think is easier to censor? A paper book that needs to be physically published, or an electronic version of that book? All you need to do to censor a physical book, is to control the means of publication.
It was easier to manipulate original texts or eliminate certain books altogether before the invention and widespread use of the printing press. Once the printing press made multiple identical copies of works available any manipulation of the texts was noticeable and critical scholars were able to sort out the changes that had been made.
I think that the electronic printing of books will make it again harder for the elites to manipulate texts and eliminate certain books altogether. At least that potential exists.
If as a society we want to we can make it so the electronic copies of books are more reliable, trustworthy and harder to manipulate than the paper copies. This is because we can generate a cryptographic hash number for the original copy, and we can check that the copy that we have generates the same cryptographic hash number. If we create an annual book that contains the cryptographic hash numbers of all the electronic books created that year, and we generate a cryptographic hash number for that book, and make these annuals universally available, then it would be simple to check that the electronic copy of the annuals is good and find in it the cryptographic hash number to use to check that a book that we have is good. As long as we have the annuals it should be almost impossible to alter any of the books without anyone noticing. What is needed though is a method of widely distributing electronic and paper copies of the books so that they remain available.
Possibly this might be done by requiring every computer connected to the net to store several randomly chosen electronic books and have them available for seeding by P2P protocol and easily accessible with a bit-torrent program. The owner of the computer does not chose the books that his computer seeds. A back-up copy such as on a DVD should be made.
With the annuals of cryptographic hash numbers it should be possible to check that sufficient seeds of all the electronic books are available for each year. If the powerful attempt to alter or ban some books then people would be aware of this and could resist it by hiding the back-up DVDs for a future reconstruction of the global library.
No doubt that this needs to be thought out better. No doubt that others have given this much more thought. My point is that things are not necessarily all that bleak with respect to access to reliable and accurate knowledge. However what is needed is an electronic storage media that will cheaply, compactly, and reliably store information for thousands of years. This would enable a far more resilient system of retaining knowledge than paper books or than the living books of Fahrenheit 451.
from the article:
~ All his life, he had taken reading as for granted as eating – but then, a few years ago, he "became aware, in an apartment full of books, that I could no longer find within myself the quiet necessary to read". He would sit down to do it at night, as he always had, and read a few paragraphs, then find his mind was wandering, imploring him to check his email, or Twitter, or Facebook. "What I'm struggling with," he writes, "is the encroachment of the buzz, the sense that there's something out there that merits my attention."
I think most of us have this sense today, if we are honest. If you read a book with your laptop thrumming on the other side of the room, it can be like trying to read in the middle of a party, where everyone is shouting to each other. To read, you need to slow down. You need mental silence except for the words. That's getting harder to find.
No, don't misunderstand me. I adore the web, and they will have to wrench my Twitter feed from my cold dead hands. This isn't going to turn into an antedeluvian rant against the glories of our wired world. But there's a reason why that word – "wired" – means both "connected to the internet" and "high, frantic, unable to concentrate". ~
does the author realize, literally, what he has written?
in a world where honeybees are being directly decimated by our electrical transmissions, why would the author not believe our own body systems to be?
could it be he is not describing a psychological condition, at all, but, rather, a physical one?
with all of the electromagnetic waves being generated within and around us at all hours of the day or night, why would anyone be surprised that we are feeling anxious, or overstimulated?
we are being stimulated...intentionally...
incidentally, comparing vinyl records to books is deceptive...
a vinyl record is worthless without a mechanism for replaying...
a book is not...
the book, of course, still requires destructive industry...paper, printing, etc...
On a practical note- the increasing price of energy is going to cause the global economy to do a slow-mo collapse (or we can at least hope its slow), and the electronics industry is one of the most vulnerable. It depends entirely on a well -functioning web of supply chains and specialized manufacturing, not to mention increasingly scare rare raw materials for some parts. As the economy dies, our electronics will be one of the first types of products to become obsolete. Your Ipad or Kindle will be nothing more than an ugly piece of retro decor.
BLUESKY: I agree. This whole instant access/gratification pulsing 24/7 concept of culture makes me think of the Las Geaux caves... now there was a message meant to endure!
I still have computer disks from now effete computer systems. The technology advances faster than anyone can stay abreast of it. Built-in obsolescence applied to technology is like each year's new must-have styles applied to the fashion industry. In both cases, it's all about a rush to no where, as Earth Mother pays for the constant stream of unnecessary replacements.
DUBET: Thanks for mentioning the bees. How many people take sleep meds these days? About 10 years ago the cover of New York magazine had someone holding their ears and the caption read, "Noise!" The issue spoke of people living in high priced apartments in Soho. Lots of clubs let out patrons at 4 AM who then yelled as loud as they pleased in the streets making it impossible for most locals to sleep.
This noise thing, this 24/7 pulse is antithetical to all the spiritual precepts that speak of a Sabbath. Everything in nature requires The Rest Beat. Even in music, without spaces between the notes, no sense of melody (or harmony) is possible. Our society has lost its capacity to rest. Even if the idea of the church demanding that stores be closed Sunday links religion too closely with state, the bottom line is that it would be a sane move in the right direction were all commerce to stop... at least SOME times.
I was planning to send an idea related to this to Evo Morales. Someone in the forum advised me on how to contact him, but I lost the paper where I'd written that down. I'd appreciate that data.
Imagine a worldwide honoring of a day of REST... no beast of burden laboring in the field, neither machine, nor human wage slave, or otherwise. A full come-to-a-stop interim for contemplation, evaluation of our net collective course, and reverence for LIFE... Earth Mother has a way of stopping commerce, otherwise. Any cursory look around at all the places where business as usual has been interrupted by climate chaos reinforces that notion. If the purpose of illness (or incarceration) is to force an individual to examine their lives, and as a result, make therapeutic changes... a similar process can be said (and seen) for the Natural World. Rest is part of the prescription.
hey, SiouxRose!
Rereading this thread, I come upon a post by Elizabeth H, and now, yourself, that have me reconsidering:
if I juxtapose my previous comments about the electromagnetic soup constantly washing over and around us with Elizabeth's mentioning of ADHD...
what if we are witnessing the effects of these radiating waves all around us, but 'misdiagnosing' as ADHD, or something else?
my suspicions only increase when I add in widespread industrial use of chemicals...
out of the cell tower shower, and into the Gulf of Corexit...
what chance a human body, or brain?
a Shutdown Day, as you mention, might reveal much...
perhaps too much...
Here I am being distracted by the internet again.
The past few days I have begun to seriously consider canceling my internet service because sites like commondreams are too distracting of my attention. I can easily spend three hours on this site, plus more time for other sites. Too many hours and days are spent online, too much of which has a time wasting quality to it in many ways similar to that of watching television (present site not included of course). Other things need to be done. I am trying to write a theses. If I did not waste so much time it would be done. My current thinking is that it would be better to have to walk or cycle a few miles to a library to access the net, getting myself mobile, exercised, and my day more organized. I hate cycling in the rain though. Yes there is a need for some quiet to concentrate on the books, and on the writing of books. The ones that I work with are fascinating when I keep myself from getting distracted from them.
The internet is such a sweet addiction. I have learned a lot from time spent on it but I need to cut back on the time I spend here. And possibly to find time to communicate face to face with others. If you would kindly post the details of your protests on the local telephone poles I will make an effort to be there. Tx.
I am curious: what is your thesis, if you don't mind?
you mention cycling in the rain...
here, in the Puget Sound region, since Fukushima began burning, I have taken to calling our precipitation 'rain-diation'...
we are currently experiencing 'rain-diation', but the forecast over the weekend is for the rain, or 'wain', to wane...
of note, however: Fukushima still burns, and the Pacific winds continue to deliver the particles, seeding our local cloud cover in preparation for our next prolonged period of 'rain-diation'...
not going away anytime soon...
@dubet
'Raindiation' is a good word to add to the English language. It expresses a new concept that is otherwise without a word quite clearly.
In my theses I look at how the model of Antiquity has been assembled. It is a rather complex model that has been evolving for half a millennium. The sequence in which a complex model is constructed has its effects on the possibilities that can be explored. Attempting to re-construct the model using a different sequence in its construction is a useful and needed test of the model. It seems to me that this leads to some strong temptation to consider a considerably different model for understanding Antiquity.
Yeah, I'm an Internet addict too. The upside is enormous: I'm in my fifties, and come from the age before linkage among libraries. I lived in a small town with a very limited library system and nothing but the drugstore for buying books, and one of the main reasons I moved to a city at 18--as soon as I was able--was for the bookstores. I worked in one for a while, an unbelievable collection of three floors of books stacked three deep, plus a warehouse with just as many. We had virtually everything, and I still get a high thinking about the place.
Now the bookstores have dried up, with the four large (by today's paltry standards) bookstores in my vacinity having closed in the past year. I sometimes buy from a longstanding private bookstore which has supported readings over the years, but often buy books online, feeling a bit guilty about it.
With the Internet, I can follow my interests, find out about a book, find related articles, videos, reviews, read selections from googlebooks, etc., which is wonderful, of course. Yet it disengages me from others around me reading them, unless I pass them on as reading assignments, as I increasingly do. I do have a friend that reads many of the books I ferret out, but otherwise I'm having conversations about them, if at all, with virtual people. It's got its ups and downs: much greater access to variety and information before buying, but much less face-to-face contact with people interested in what I am. This no doubt contributes to the fact that I often feel that I am living in a parallel universe when talking with collegues and even friends.
The true downside, as you say, is spending too much time on the damned thing to the detriment of much else.
Using the library is hopeless. Once a book is in my hands, it's hard to disengage. Too many fines.
Books cannot merely be considered "dead trees" if they serve a certain purpose and have value (annotated or otherwise). Our hyperindustrial thoughtflow even seeks to inform how we relate to books now. Yes there are more responsible ways to print, that's (book printing) not really the problem. The problem is extricating our harmful actions and reducing the negative impact of those actions upon the natural world. In other words assuming greater responsibility for actions to achieve a better relationship to power. It's good we're seeking to at least consider this.
I have been living with the question of agraphic peoples and traditions. Oral transmission - predating the book and which must continually resist being labeled as "illiterate".
What intrigues me is Shakespeare. I can never shake the feeling that he (presumably he) was raised and trained in the tradition of the bard. The journeying bearer of news from one human grouping to another - back and forth, using body, voice, gesture, adding the input along the way, weaving lives in a larger society.
Shakespeare read aloud is unique treat. The rhythmic movement of iambic pentameter is like magic - as though it goes in synch with the brain waves of social interaction - you can virtually feel the synapses crackling.
There were a couple of hundred years - or more - where societies were still living the matrix of the life of the spoken word and writers conveyed their thinking as if speaking - a rhetorical style.
Plato & Socrates for instance - were orators, were intended to be argued standing, speaking - an experiential shift in scope similar to the shift from the printed book to the electronic - methinks...