Really interesting piece about how the web is altering the way we consume information. Is the web altering the way we read and take in information, is the web making it impossible for us to imerrse ourselves in books or long articles? I don't agree with all the negative aspects but agree with the idea that the web is alteing the way society consumes information.
"I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable
sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain,
remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t
going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way
I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading.
Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My
mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument,
and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s
rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift
after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking
for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward
brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally
has become a struggle."
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google
It's worth reading Iain Tait's posts from Mental Detox Week to see some of the effects of the web on how we work and conusme information
http://www.crackunit.com/2008/04/17/mental-detox-week/
http://www.crackunit.com/2008/04/21/mental-detox-week-1/
http://www.crackunit.com/2008/04/23/mental-detox-week-day-2-observations/
http://www.crackunit.com/2008/04/23/mental-detox-week-something-i-read/
