Carr is right, though I think the article is a little lightweight for what it's telling us: That we're rewiring ourselves for impatience.
That's what I see in myself: I want any printed item to deliver the goods and deliver them fast. This is a relatively new thing with me (new within the past ten or twelve years) and I'm not sure what to ascribe it to except for the Internet-spawned expectation of instant answers and extremely focused treatments.
I wasn't always this way. As an undergraduate 35 years ago I read Chaucer in Middle English and took days of odd moments to read a single tale, relishing the challenge. I'm not sure I could do that anymore without extreme effort. I'm a results-oriented reader now, and although I don't think I read a great deal less than I did in the 1970s, I expect more of what I read, and get annoyed more easily when an author gets to a point in a way more roundabout than I feel is warranted.
One issue that Carr touches only lightly on is that we live almost unthinkably richer lives of the mind than we did even twenty or thirty years ago. When I was in college, I took for granted that there were only so many hours in the day, and I could only spend so many of them in the De Paul University library. (I had a job, duties to my family--I lived at home--my writing, and of course, Carol.) I didn't expect to be able to expose myself to much more than my coursework required. Today I have Wells' World Brain right on my desk, ready to chase loose ends for me to the far corners of human knowledge. There are no more hours in the day than there were in 1973, but if I want to ask a question, the Magic Mirror is only a few steps from anywhere in the house. (We have computers here like some people have mice--and CAT5E to every room in the house.) The temptation to ask is not easily resisted, and there's the risk of burying oneself in loose ends when what one wants is the big picture.
You're bang-on about keeping the channels balanced. That's why I budget time to sit and read longish, dryish books like The Fall of the Dynasties and James, the Brother of Jesus. Like any other skill, you have to practice. I played piano in college. I practiced. I haven't played for over thirty years. I don't think I could play now without days of extremely focused catching up, and even then I wonder how well I would do. I'm interested in too many things, and I'm not used to thinking that my mind has limitations. But it does. In vain hope of doing everything I want to do, I end up doing small slices of too many things, not all of them well.
By the way, don't feel bad about printing material to paper. Even if it ends up in a landfill, paper buried is carbon taken out of the atmosphere. If conscience besets you, plant a tree.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-08-20 12:47 am (UTC)That's what I see in myself: I want any printed item to deliver the goods and deliver them fast. This is a relatively new thing with me (new within the past ten or twelve years) and I'm not sure what to ascribe it to except for the Internet-spawned expectation of instant answers and extremely focused treatments.
I wasn't always this way. As an undergraduate 35 years ago I read Chaucer in Middle English and took days of odd moments to read a single tale, relishing the challenge. I'm not sure I could do that anymore without extreme effort. I'm a results-oriented reader now, and although I don't think I read a great deal less than I did in the 1970s, I expect more of what I read, and get annoyed more easily when an author gets to a point in a way more roundabout than I feel is warranted.
One issue that Carr touches only lightly on is that we live almost unthinkably richer lives of the mind than we did even twenty or thirty years ago. When I was in college, I took for granted that there were only so many hours in the day, and I could only spend so many of them in the De Paul University library. (I had a job, duties to my family--I lived at home--my writing, and of course, Carol.) I didn't expect to be able to expose myself to much more than my coursework required. Today I have Wells' World Brain right on my desk, ready to chase loose ends for me to the far corners of human knowledge. There are no more hours in the day than there were in 1973, but if I want to ask a question, the Magic Mirror is only a few steps from anywhere in the house. (We have computers here like some people have mice--and CAT5E to every room in the house.) The temptation to ask is not easily resisted, and there's the risk of burying oneself in loose ends when what one wants is the big picture.
You're bang-on about keeping the channels balanced. That's why I budget time to sit and read longish, dryish books like The Fall of the Dynasties and James, the Brother of Jesus. Like any other skill, you have to practice. I played piano in college. I practiced. I haven't played for over thirty years. I don't think I could play now without days of extremely focused catching up, and even then I wonder how well I would do. I'm interested in too many things, and I'm not used to thinking that my mind has limitations. But it does. In vain hope of doing everything I want to do, I end up doing small slices of too many things, not all of them well.
By the way, don't feel bad about printing material to paper. Even if it ends up in a landfill, paper buried is carbon taken out of the atmosphere. If conscience besets you, plant a tree.