Changes to how we think

Posted on June 13, 2008
Filed Under What's New |

Today I was attracted back to Nick Carr’s arguments about how the web changes how we think. The immediate reason was being on the PSFK site which referenced Carr’s Atlantic article on this subject.

The general drift is that the web makes us skimmers - jet ski users rather than divers. Carr also does a mini-tour of the changes memory went through with the advent of writing and then of the printing press.

The last time Nick Carr wrote about it I summarised some of my own articles and thoughts. Sad to say The Atlantic Monthly and Rough Type failed to pick up on it.

I would probably put myself in the same category as all those people who say: I don’t read as much as I used to (I actually write more). When I examine that statement though I realise I’ve read much and little at different times. As a student i was a horrific skimmer, getting through five books a week - in fact we used to know books by their skimmability and most (academic ones) were decisively first and last chapter books. In fact some you could condense into ten lines.

I don’t buy the we don’t read and therefore are more superficial argument. I would complain that people don’t read but what I mean is they don’t read me. And I know from the blogosphere that many more people are writing and that has to be good.

What I do think is significant is that writers and artists are not intervening creatively in the world wide web to elevate significant moments in our collective lives. The alphabet has been around for a long time and many millions have mastered writing but it takes an artist to intervene and make art from that trade. People are always acting out but it takes a Goethe, a Shakespeare to intervene and make it art.

My complaint or observation is the web lacks the people who make it art, who elevate that activity and make it memorable, who forge something from it that confirms the current order while it also undermines it. Part of the problem is the truncated role of memory but I suspect also the problem comes down to creativity and working out how to frame this fast moving flood of activity into something very starry.

Comments

WordPress database error: [Can't open file: 'wp_comments.MYI'. (errno: 144)]
SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_ID = '872' AND comment_approved = '1' ORDER BY comment_date

Leave a Reply