Have you noticed that the more you use the internet -- all of that
email, surfing, and social networking -- the less you're able to
concentrate on things for very long? That you feel more restless and
scattered?
A few months ago, one of my mentors posted an article link on Facebook about just this issue, and an Atlantic Monthly article by Nicholas Carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid, focuses on this as well. (A recent Salon.com article by Laura Miller, Yes, The Internet is Rotting Our Brains, reviews Carr's new book, The Shallows, which expands upon the Atlantic Monthly article. Oddly, the Salon article seems to have disappeared for the moment.).
In the article, Carr writes, "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. ... 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."
Carr shares similar comments and experiences from other Netophiles, including one who says his thinking "has taken on a “staccato” quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online."
I've noticed this as well, and while I adore the internet and believe the benefits are many, I find the effect on my ability to focus and concentrate disconcerting. Only through walking, being in nature, and meditation (which is more challenging) do I reclaim some balance.
Carr points to emerging research on internet use that emphasizes the
effect of hyperlinks, quick and abundant bits of information, and
things like tiny messages (like we see on Twitter or text-messaging) as
literally changing our brains. We need to be spoon-fed tiny bits of information or we get distracted and hop off for the next mini-info fix.
Yet for all of the blessings bestowed by the internet -- as with much of the 'progress' brought about by the technology age -- there are costs and losses that are important, particularly if we cede them unconsciously.
"The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is
valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words
but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own
minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted
reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that
matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and
analogies, foster our own ideas," he writes.
There is a big difference between gathering useful information, and being programmed away from a capacity for making deeper connections. I wonder, how has this changed our capacity to deeply connect with other things, like Nature, relationships, and the less desirable consequences of our actions -- and inventions?
I also can't help but see the connection between this issue and the conversation about the re-emerging Feminine and the capacities associated with it, and the need to bring balance to an out-of-balance Masculine.
Would love to hear about your experience and perspectives on this...
Blessings,
Jamie
* Photo Credit: fdecomite, from Spiral Galleries, shared under Creative Commons.