Is technology forcing a rewiring of our brains that will turn us into data-seeking hummingbirds? When's the last time you devoted 50 hours of concentrated thinking to one book-- fiction or non-fiction? With so much new information only a click away, are we turning into information "snorklers" who have neither the patience nor the inclination to go "skuba diving" to hear great stories or gain a deeper understanding? And do I still have your attention? Well, if so, check out this essay from Ben Macintyre of The London Times on his theory that the Internet is killing storytelling.
Click, tweet, e-mail, twitter, skim, browse, scan, blog, text: the jargon of the digital age describes how we now read, reflecting the way that the very act of reading, and the nature of literacy itself, is changing.
The information we consume online comes ever faster, punchier and more fleetingly. Our attention rests only briefly on the internet page before moving incontinently on to the next electronic canapé.
Addicted to the BlackBerry, hectored and heckled by the next blog alert, web link or text message, we are in state of Continual Partial Attention, too bombarded by snippets and gobbets of information to focus on anything for very long. Microsoft researchers have found that someone distracted by an e-mail message alert takes an average of 24 minutes to return to the same level of concentration.
The internet has evolved a new species of magpie reader, gathering bright little buttons of knowledge, before hopping on to the next shiny thing.
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