Oct 26 2008
Multitasking: not always a good thing
This will be a bit rushed, as will tomorrow’s post, as Life Intervenes somewhat.
But I heard a few comments on the radio this morning, by CBC Radio’s Michael Enright, on his regular Sunday Edition program. He’s started the project, this season, of reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and he’s giving the listeners regular report on his progress.
This is a book I haven’t read myself (yet), even though I took a “Russian Literature in Translation” course at university, and also took a whole course on Solzhenitsyn. But I do want to read it, so I’m always interested in how he’s doing. This morning, though, his comments struck directly at another issue that I’ve been hearing about, more and more lately. So they kind of had a double whammy.
Enright was talking about an article in The Atlantic for July/August of 2008, written by Nick Carr and entitled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” I think I’ll be coming back to that article more in this blog in the near future, since some friends and I have also discussed this. But Carr’s basic premise is that with the way we internet people have learned to flit aroung the Web, gathering bits of info in short spurts, we’re becoming incapable of just sitting and doing what he calls “deep reading,” where we can sit for a couple of hours and just concentrate on reading (and retaining) one thing for a long period of time. Getting totally absorbed and disconnecting from the rest of the world.
My short answer to the question in his title would actually be: No. Google is not making us stupid. But in my opinion (and this started well before the internet took hold of our consciousness), the “sound-byte” culture is making us stupid, and the issues about Google are just a sub-set of that bigger problem. We’ve lost the capacity (or the desire, or even the brains to recognize the value) to read an extended, complex argument or story, from beginning to end, retaining all the elements. We want information in small chunks, we want politicians to tell us how they’ll save the world (in ten words or less), we want everything in tiny bits. And our brains have become lazy, so that we whine like babies if we’re expected to actually learn anything, or even to remember it three hours from now. (After all - we have it bookmarked!!)
This really bothers me. We’re raising a whole generation of people who can’t think. They can google their brains out, and present a tidbit to someone on demand - but they couldn’t think through anything to save their lives. And this doesn’t just turn them into live-for-the-moment self-centred instant-gratification babies - I believe it threatens democracy itself. (And most of the sound byte generation probably couldn’t think it through and figure out why I might draw this conclusion.)
I think I’m going to start turning off the computer and the TV, maybe one evening a week, and just sitting and reading. And you know what will happen? My mind will start wandering, and I’ll start thinking of other things. Many, many other things, since I have ADD.
But I know the brain/mind can be trained. So I’ll drag my thoughts back to the book, and will not grab my cell to call someone, will not read something in one window while having another window open to flip to, will not be texting someone while I’m supposedly “reading.” I’ll do this again and again until my mind is once again capable of abandoning the rest of the world and concentrating on One Book for a long period of time, and encompassing the whole book at once.
And you know what will begin to happen after doing this for a while?
I’LL BE SMARTER.
Excellent post! I do want to discuss it further, at length, which I’ll do tomorrow from work.
“Deep reading” … I like that phrase, as it really sums up the concept.
And I’ve noticed the same thing, even experiencing it a little bit myself. Just turning off the TV & staying away from the Internet for a day or two makes a huge difference — suddenly I’ve got all this TIME! And with it, a desire to do something meaningful with it, something more than skimming & darting from thought to thought.
There’s no substitute for immersion into the universe of a rich & complex book. It changes you, expands your being just a bit more, opens new possibilities, makes you THINK.
But for many people, the Cliff Notes version is preferable, with the “moral of the story” set forth in a couple of lines … lines that are nothing but empty words without the experience of reading & growing from the novel behind them.
I’ve got an unread copy of “War and Peace” on my shelves, one of thsoe classics I picked up at a library sale with the intention of reading someday. Perhaps this should be that day?
I also like the “darting around” a lot of the time, so I don’t denigrate it entirely. But I want to keep my “long term thinking” abilities alive too.
I wonder if “War and Peace” might be a bit too big to start with, though. Maybe you should work up to it gradually, heehee!
I’m thinking of re-starting Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles. Though if I start reading one of those on a Thursday night, I probably wouldn’t sleep all night.
You may be right that it’s how we’re taught to use the info, rather than the method of gathering it. In fact, I heard a piece by a doctor this morning, on CBC Radio, where he said that studies have shown that when you google for info, neurons fire in your brain that wouldn’t have fired otherwise. Which means that new paths are being created in the brain. So the act of seeking information may make us smarter.
I still think there could be our growing smarter, yet at the same time losing our ability to concentrate for long periods of time. So the two could almost cancel each other out.
And about the books you’re trying to read…heh. My interpretation would be that it’s the books you’re trying to read that may be the problem, and not you. But that’s my bias showing.
That does make sense, Nicola. And I know what you mean about the absolute proliferation of information these days. I had a friend a few years ago who tended just to shut herself off from everything because she couldn’t handle the volume of available information. You really can’t keep up with everything. So you’re right — that does create the need to dip a toe in to lots of places, quickly, and only being able to pick and choose a few things to immerse in.
By the way — on behalf of baby boomers everywhere (I’m at the very tail end of that crowd), my apologies.