Although the Internet now supplies the world with these resources, I do not think that people are using them to their full potential. When I sit down to start a research paper, I reach for a book instead of going on to the Internet because I feel as though I pay much more attention to the readings when they are in my hand rather than on a screen. In Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” he brings up many points backing my choice to read a book instead of an e-book. In the article he interviewed Bruce Friedman who is a constant blogger about computers and medicine. Bruce says, “’I can’t read War and Peace anymore,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.’” I do not know about you, but I completely agree with this statement. It is so much harder to read an online article that is longer than a couple of paragraphs than to read the same article on paper.
Yes, we are a little less focused, thanks to the electric stimulus of the screen. Yes, we are reading slightly fewer long-form narratives and arguments than we did 50 years ago, though the Kindle and the iPad may well change that. Those are costs, to be sure. But what of the other side of the ledger? We are reading more text, writing far more often, than we were in the heyday of television. | |