The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
jseliger.com
jseliger.com
Similarly, people complain about the huge number of workday hours lost to Facebook browsing or people playing flash games or simply solitaire.
I'm a bit cautious about drawing too many conclusions there. I think we've always been very easy to distract, any excuse was okay. We just have more and easier excuses right now, especially at places where just a few years ago, you couldn't be as easily distracted. At home, with friends calling, books in your library, a TV, your spouse, kids, etc, distraction was common place, and as you didn't feel like you were losing productivity, nobody really complained.
That's one of the reasons why people were forced into cubicles -- minimize potentials for distracting interaction. Now graphical computer interfaces, the internet and mobile phones made it possible for you to waste enough time, while sitting perfectly still. No wonder that a lot of journalists complain about that. Just a few years ago, they were sitting in front of typewriters (or DOS machines with XyWrite), where focus was no problem. Now it's not that easy anymore.
But is forcibly blocking this really the ultimate solution? /etc/hosts, Freedom, cubicles, log cabins, monasteries… Don't we just fight a symptom that we should tackle otherwise? There's probably some evolutionary reason why we're prone to this ("There, a sabretooth tiger!"), but only to a certain point. I think above that, you want to be distracted and thus easily give in to temptation.
It's like when we were kids. Cleaning up your room, then your neighbor throws pebbles against your window? Off you go! But when you're all centered on playing with your Legos, your Mom has trouble getting you to dinner.
Maybe we shouldn't try as much to be monks, but set out to change our lives to contain more Legos.
Precisely what I was thinking reading this article. Despite being a relative early adopter of the ’Net due to my college exposure last millenium, I’ve never really lost my ability to read or focus on a task… if I’m willing to do it. I didn’t feel tempted to follow any of those links in the article, for example.
That said, with my recent bout of self-employment, I’ve found David Letterman’s pronouncement that the iPad is the “ultimate in procrastination technology” to be mostly true. However, everytime I let this happen, I conclude that it is a sign of my being afraid or reluctant to do something related to my current task. Once I solve that underlying problem, I get productive again.
I think the takeaway from the above is that in recent times, people only seem to be more easily distracted, because, IMHO, that people, for some reason or another, have become more likely to do work or take on tasks that deep down they really don’t want to do. It isn’t just the current recession, but something deep in our hireing practices or job opportunities that is letting humanity down…
I read books like Rainbows End and articles by Ray Kurzweil and it just doesn't bother me.
http://gapingvoid.com/2006/09/17/the-future-belongs-to-the-g...
Where? Where? Come on, let's go! We're losing it! I think I can see it over there! Let's go hunt! Wheeeeeeeeeee!
I'm sorry, where you saying something important?
The Internet provides never before seen access to information, and just like with any other part of life, it's up to each person to make sure they get a balanced intake.
The Internet is not encouraging this, it's the people. With great power comes great responsibility.
You're point is valid, that it's up to each one of us to find the right balance. It just becomes harder when unplugging from the Net is the modern day equivalent of pulling a Thoreau.
I have a script on my computer to disable my internet during the 9-5 on weekdays so that I can actually think. It still doesn't work; I manually override it probably 20min in everyday.
While there's clearly a point at which the internet is a self-sustaining asocial distraction, it doesn't have to be that way. It can be used for local discussions to great effect.
Of course, not everybody exposed to the internet uses it in a social manner. Perhaps it just amplifies existing inclinations?
One thing I've found helpful is in readability[1] which can take inline links and make them footnotes. I've also made a Drupal module[2] which acts as an input filter so you can do inline links as you write (to not break up your flow of writing) and have them automatically be turned into footnotes (which will work with WYSIWYG and Markdown as well). It's really nice and I've found it's something that help promotes a reading style which is more linear.
[1] http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ [2] http://github.com/codeincarnate/Drupal-Footnote-Links
On a more personal note, I have noticed a distinct distraction factor to having the internet available, and a significant difficulty in concentrating for longer periods on books. In the late 1990s through 2002 I read over 100 new books every year (that is books that I had not read before and that I read the entire book - I didn't keep track of re-reading and reading articles or chapters here and there). Since I have been on the internet, I have read fewer books each year - 96 in 2004 down to 44 last year. I didn't actually realize it was that bad until I just looked up the numbers for this comment.
1) I read more often, instead of skimming.
2) I am less likely to click on links within articles, more so now that readability lets you configure it to show links as footnotes. If I am extremely curious I will check out the links after finishing the article.
3) I am so used to the beige background and typography of choice on my custom readability setup that I find it hard to read texts on any other typography or on any other background (esp. white background).
This leads me to believe that Nicholas Carr's hypothesis has a lot of merit in it. And even with six months worth of heavy Readability use (and I read a lot) I have essentially rewired my reading habit.
…or outright sabotage by the writer. He challenges (more like, dares) the reader on a couple of occasions to remember something he wrote earlier in the article.
(Yes, I just watched that video, and then posted about it on HN, instead of doing more productive things.)