What are We Allowing?
In an ordinary neighborhood in an average family room, a typical family conducts their regular routine. A young man talks on the phone while he plays computer games online. His sister texts while she watches YouTube. Dad pours through hundreds of emails. Mom checks blogs between a hundred other tasks.
Technology certainly has the power to improve our quality of life and make us more efficient. But it also has the potential to make our lives noisy and capricious.
When I was young, I read incessantly. My friends would come over to play and, despite the fact that I love sports, I would often politely say “no thank you” and go back upstairs to read.
I’m having a harder time reading for long periods of time than I used to. Of course, I read (and respond to) a lot of emails and I read blogs. But my mind seems to drift more often than it used to when I try to read long articles or books. The author of this article from The Atlantic Monthly feels the same way, and he blames technology.
I was very interested in the article, yet, after the first five or six paragraphs, I found myself drifting, as I do more and more often when I read sequentially for long periods of time. I persisted and found myself nodding my head in support as he made most of his points.
What are we allowing technology to do to us?
Take a look at the article and let me know what you think (if you make it through the whole thing).
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I confess that I did not make it through the whole article. Mr. Carr made his point early that reading on the web has changed how we read as well as our ability to read deeply. There is so much new material to absorb each day. Perhaps the wandering mind comes from being concerned that we will miss out on something equally or more important on the next blog. That is why short blog posts seem to work best.
I hope this does not affect our scripture reading and gospel study time and especially not our prayers. That is why I enjoy time spent in worship each Sunday. I appreciate that it forces us to pause as we listen to others speak or teach. We absorb the things of the spirit better with time to ponder. Let’s hope that reading the things of the Lord receive our best attention.
Tim’s comment on scripture study rang a bell for me. How often do you or you family get caught in the “must read our one page of scriptures tonight” routine and pass by opportunities for contemplation or discussion about what you’re reading? When Lani and I notice our family in “quite impatient mode” when we read the scriptures, we make it a point to stop and discuss a topic we’ve just read–even if it squeezes out any additional reading for that night.
One important quote from the bottom of the article:
“So, yes, you should be skeptical of my skepticism. Perhaps those who dismiss critics of the Internet as Luddites or nostalgists will be proved correct, and from our hyperactive, data-stoked minds will spring a golden age of intellectual discovery and universal wisdom. Then again, the Net isn’t the alphabet, and although it may replace the printing press, it produces something altogether different. 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. Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking.”
To me “deep reading” is what Moroni talks about when he says: “and ponder it in your hearts.”
Wow! Excellent link. I actually made it all the way through the article, but not without some difficulty. I often find that the information we read on the internet is somewhat superficial. Books get to the deep stuff and allow us to think. I’ve often found myself wasting an hour or two reading blogs filled with mundane anecdotes when I could have been reading the scriptures or other great books, or even developing new skills and talents. I think the best blogs will be those that can bring together the best qualities of both books and technology. We should often ask ourselves, where do our priorities lie in this fast-paced technological world? What can we do with our time now that will actually help us become better people in the long run? Is our focus eternal?
I find I read more if I have the internet before me. I can get really deep when I want to learn about something new because I can pick off the best information from multiple sites. I can now find answers quickly that years ago I could never follow through on because the resources were not available. I rather think that many people have substituted television time for internet time and for most they are better off for it.
I have found the same thing to be happening to me, though on a lesser scale. I’ve always been a meandering reader, not one to read too fast, because I like to ponder whatever it is I’m reading. Words are like chocolate to me, I guess. I don’t want to just scarf them down.
But I didn’t finish this article. After I felt I got the jist, I was good with that and moved on. These days I just want people, at least online, to get to the point and leave repetitious prose for the printed medium.
As for the scripture reading problem, I combined my love of blogging with my love of scripture reading to create http://americantestament.blogspot.com. Blogging a chapter at a time, or even parts of a chapter at a time, lets me do the “deep dive” into the content while scratching my itch to write as well as share the gospel with others. And, it’s something we can all do because we all have our own experiences to relate to scripture and vice versa.
I read that article about a month ago!! I’m pleased to see that it is part of the subject of conversation among members of the church.
Carr makes very good connections that have a solid grounding through the past couple hundred years. It is fascinating to me that he has drawn parallels between the physical evolution of industry and the current mental evolution that is taking place.
By being aware of our own weaknesses from using the internet and it’s amazing resources, we now have the opportunity to fortify those weaknesses and, at the very least, prevent ourselves from becoming too lax in our ability to read.
I recently finished reading a book by Niel Postman entitled “Technopoly”. One of the dominant themes of the book is that we are often blind to negative effects that technology brings upon us because we are so enamored with the benefits. He also makes a good argument showing that along with ALL technology comes both good and bad.
As distributors of technology and information, I believe that we have a certain responsibility to be aware of the negative consequences which might arise from the technologies and information overload that we create. I think that what you’ve indicated above is a perfect example of a cultural change that is beginning to manifest due to the flood of information that technology has brought to us.
The last chapter of Postman’s book provides a list of things that we can due to “fight” against the loss of culture due to the negative aspects of technology. Interestingly enough, one of them is to “never forget the great narratives of religion.”
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