In the latest issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Nicholas Carr wrote a piece titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that raises interesting issues regarding the effects of Google on the way we read. Carr looks at history for significant technological shifts and its reception. One of the oldest – and I think most interesting – is from Socrates, and his view on writing:
In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates bemoaned the development of writing. He feared that, as people came to rely on the written word as a substitute for the knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would, in the words of one of the dialogue’s characters, “cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.” And because they would be able to “receive a quantity of information without proper instruction,” they would “be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.” They would be “filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.” Socrates wasn’t wrong-the new technology did often have the effects he feared-but he was shortsighted. He couldn’t foresee the many ways that writing and reading would serve to spread information, spur fresh ideas, and expand human knowledge (if not wisdom).
A similar concern arose with the printing press:
The arrival of Gutenberg’s printing press, in the 15th century, set off another round of teeth gnashing. The Italian humanist Hieronimo Squarciafico worried that the easy availability of books would lead to intellectual laziness, making men “less studious” and weakening their minds. Others argued that cheaply printed books and broadsheets would undermine religious authority, demean the work of scholars and scribes, and spread sedition and debauchery. As New York University professor Clay Shirky notes, “Most of the arguments made against the printing press were correct, even prescient.” But, again, the doomsayers were unable to imagine the myriad blessings that the printed word would deliver.
And now, the concern has shifted to the Internet. The Internet allows us to retrieve information quickly, but doesn’t necessarily require us to go “deep” into a topic – changing the way we engage text completely, even offline. And there is a fear that the Internet might cause an epidemic in our culture that results in people being unable to hold a focus long to enough to grasp complex ideas.
If that’s a possibility then there is reason to be concerned. The New York Times, in a piece titled “Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?,” explains how we are already moving away books and onto screens:
Children are clearly spending more time on the Internet. In a study of 2,032 representative 8- to 18-year-olds, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly half used the Internet on a typical day in 2004, up from just under a quarter in 1999. The average time these children spent online on a typical day rose to one hour and 41 minutes in 2004, from 46 minutes in 1999.
And the effects – at least in the way we currently test for them – seem to be negative:
As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading – diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.
While Socrates was right that writing made us lose our ability to memorize, he was unable to foresee (or maybe foresaw, but still did not approve) the rise of engaged and literate societies, which have been responsible for many of the great creations of humanity.
So what type of world are we unable to yet see by high level and data extracting reading that the Internet so easily provides? Well, it’s hard to say, but there is another angle we can approach this to give us an idea.
We have for the past hundred years – aided by technology – seen the rise of the “Multitasker.” Modern life requires the completion of many tasks and in the rush to complete these tasks; we break up into even smaller task, which allow us to incrementally work on many things simultaneously. That is how work is accomplished in the modern world and is also how reading is changing.
But we’re already aware of the dangers of multitasking in various parts of our lives.
A few months ago The Atlantic Monthly published an article by novelist and critic, Walter Kirn, titled “The Autumn of the Multitaskers“, that explains how multitasking affects our brain:
Multitasking messes with the brain in several ways. At the most basic level, the mental balancing acts that it requires-the constant switching and pivoting-energize regions of the brain that specialize in visual processing and physical coordination and simultaneously appear to shortchange some of the higher areas related to memory and learning. We concentrate on the act of concentration at the expense of whatever it is that we’re supposed to be concentrating on.
Even worse, certain studies find that multitasking boosts the level of stress-related hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline and wears down our systems through biochemical friction, prematurely aging us. In the short term, the confusion, fatigue, and chaos merely hamper our ability to focus and analyze, but in the long term, they may cause it to atrophy.
This is the great irony of multitasking-that its overall goal, getting more done in less time, turns out to be chimerical. In reality, multitasking slows our thinking. It forces us to chop competing tasks into pieces, set them in different piles, then hunt for the pile we’re interested in, pick up its pieces, review the rules for putting the pieces back together, and then attempt to do so, often quite awkwardly. (Fact, and one more reason the bubble will pop: A brain attempting to perform two tasks simultaneously will, because of all the back-and-forth stress, exhibit a substantial lag in information processing.)
So, in our effort to complete many tasks, we inhibit our ability to complete any single one. And it doesn’t help that the computer is inherently multipurpose. What appears to be happening is that different behaviors are being consolidated into a single tool that by design favors multitasking – obstructing other possible ways to engage ideas.
Breaking up tasks has allowed for the development of the industrial revolution. Physical motions were broken up in simple actions – constraining the individual, but allowing for the “system” to work more efficiently. The computer revolution has also limited physical acts to moving our fingers and our minds too have become compartmentalized – suited to completing simple tasks.
What we find is that this compartmentalization of human minds and ideas can be beneficial to the “system.”
Wikipedia, I think, is a good example of this idea in action and I think can be a glimpse into the way we engage ideas in the future. Individuals are responsible for depositing tiny slivers of knowledge into large pools of information, but no individual idea is valued or acknowledged, while giving a sense of collective progress. But this system also deprives individuals of any deep sense of worth. Similar to mind-numbing factory jobs, I can see lives, thoughts, and entertainment being broken down into tiny plots that are easily satisfied… and never questioned.
Worst of all, when people’s needs are so easily met, few would realize the worth of deep and uninterrupted thoughts.
Marcus Gilroy-Ware 12:45 pm on January 23, 2009 Permalink
Eddie, I’m not sure it isn’t a bit unfair to say that people are “giving themselves up” to Barack Obama.
This election was very important to a lot of people for reasons that, even if we don’t want to get subjective, we can objectively say are historically significant. I admit there has been some serious some Kool-aid drinking going on, but we have to see it in context, and believe me it won’t last.
Also, technically speaking, since the USA never has public referendums, all presidents have the same executive power once they are elected.
Whether people love you or hate you doesn’t really affect what you can actually do – the definition of power, it’s just a sign of whether the public approve of what you’ve done so far.
You aren’t relinquishing power to Barack Obama, or to any other president by approving of him, or even dare I say it, being inspired by him. The moment you offer to relinquish power to him is when you vote for him or her, and that’s what democracy is all about – managing that transfer of power.
Once he or she is in office, whether you like him or hate him doesn’t involve any meaningful transfer of power, thankfully. Until the next time you have to vote, that is…
Eddie A. Tejeda 6:20 pm on January 24, 2009 Permalink
Marcus,
I acknowledge that we are living through a historical period, but we must also remember that the historical significance is within a political frame. In the terms of electing a black president, it’s a somber reminder that politics is just now accepting ideas that modern ethics have long resolved; in that race is an illegitimate inhibitor of one’s success.
On the issue of relinquishing power: I think that there is an important how you hand over power. This is where idea of mandates comes into play. We can elect and then challenge or we can elect and abide. When it’s the latter, and based on emotions we see things like the Iraq War after September 11th. Eventually people to their sense, but it’s sadly often after the leadership has caused great damage. I think with Obama, we should let him do this job, but I think we should give him a mandate based on reason and not faith.
Victoria 2:10 pm on January 26, 2009 Permalink
There’s certainly reason to take pause witnessing the inauguration, as one should with all political events or engagements, though especially considering that one of the most valid criticisms brought against the Bush II regime and its supporters was that it was a faith-based presidency. The president asked for its citizens to be faithful to him, patriotic by not questioning his administration, and by most all accounts (for one, see http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12931660) 43rd’s administration was also anti-intellectual and anti-rational within the white house. Emotional appeal, particularly patriotism and fear and a sense of victory, were used in ways we’re all quite aware of by this point in time.
The irony of 2m people on January 20 engaging a politician and a political moment with emotions, when chances are most all of those people would agree that Bush II’s emotional engagement and manipulation were one of the worst things about his administration, is certainly there. I think that it matters on this occasion to discern what the emotions were and why, and then to evaluate what comes next on the morning after.
Let’s first think about why people felt emotions that day. From those I spoke to and interviews I’ve watched, there were two reasons that were far less partisan: to celebrate that we are lucky to have a peaceful transition of power and to celebrate or feel joy because the first black president means something (should we not celebrate just because we have racial equality laws already? I would have a hard time saying that anyone who questioned whether we’d have a non-white male president for racial reasons, or any civil rights activists or victims of discrimination shouldn’t celebrate a symbolic passage of a painful era), and then two reasons that are more partisan: those who attended to be a part of something historic and those who are so-called Obamaphiles or Obamaites celebrating victory. For all of these reasons, but especially the last two, we need to ask: what comes after the emotions of inauguration day?
Those who gave up power are those whose inclination or ability to hold Obama (or any political leader), accountable is lessened or eliminated because of their emotional engagement. This does not apply to everyone who felt something on that day.
As an example of the nuanced role of emotions in politics: people in San Francisco engaged Harvey Milk (first gay elected representative) and the issues he was elected around emotionally, and because of that he had an engaged and attentive constituency of new voters who helped elect him. These people followed Milk’s every move in City Hall, and would have noticed if he suddenly supported something he said he would not. It might be said, then, that an involved (with emotions as well) constituency holds their leaders as accountable as a non-emotional and purely rational constituency. And system says that if these people, emotionally engaged or not, can hold these people accountable through regular elections, the ability to protest, etc etc.
I recall that not too many years ago, particularly after the 2004 election, people I came in contact with felt hopeless and were going towards apathy with American politics. The inauguration was, among it’s many nuances good and bad, a sign that people do care and feel engaged with politics enough to, in the way it should happen and does with many, be informed and on top of things in order to hold Obama accountable.
Did some people give up their power to the Obama brand? No doubt. Did everyone by virtue of participating in Jan 20 excitement? Not if they honor one of the tenants of this system– that we can criticize our leader and participate in change if we’re not happy with how things are going. As many opposing Bush said all along, questioning the president indeed is the most patriotic thing one can do. But, that doesn’t mean we can be happy when things change.
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(On a side note, an interesting discussion would be on the potential for our nation to evolve (I choose that word on purpose) into a multi-party democracy, thereby weakening the detrimental ‘my team versus your team’ mentality that so often prevents people from holding folks like Obama accountable. Particularly Americans tend to not switch team loyalties readily (we’re a very sports team loyal culture) and would be better served by an even more critical citizenry that has a larger array of options in order to better regulate politicians in office. )
Cameron 2:51 pm on January 27, 2009 Permalink
I agree. I’m all for obama’s positions on a bunch of stuff. but just cause “our guy” is in power, doesn’t mean the questioning of his logic, motives, and judgment stops. questioning bush wasn’t wrong then, even tho it was framed as unpatriotic. its not wrong now, even tho we’ve essentially elected the antithesis of bush. what might be different now, is our questions might not fall on entirely deaf ears.