Internet: Our Primary Source of Information
Thesis: As the Internet becomes our primary source of information, it is affecting our ability to read books and other long narratives. This process of rewiring our brains carries the danger of flattening human experience even as it offers the benefits of knowledge efficiency and immediacy.
1) The author begins the article with a description of the closing scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey when Dave dismantles the memory circuits of Hal, the artificial brain that controls the space ship.
2) The author feels that someone has been tinkering with his brain, making it change.
He no longer enjoys reading a book of any length because he cannot sustain concentration on the book.
3) He feels that all the time he now spends online is affecting his abilities to concentrate.
He recognizes that the Internet has been a useful tool for him to search for information and communicate.
He notes that, unlike footnotes, links send you to the information rather than just refer to it.
3) The Internet has become a universal medium to access information.
He cites Wired magazine’s Clive Thompson who believes the Internet aids thinking.
The author feels the benefit, however, comes with a price.
He cites Marshall McLuhan who noted in the 1960s that media are not passive channels of information.
Media supplies the content of thought but also shape the process of thought.
The Internet seems to be affecting his ability to concentrate and contemplate.
His mind wants information to take in information the way the Internet distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.
Instead of being a diver in the sea of words, he sees himself as a guy on a Jet Ski.
4) Other people are having similar problems staying focused after using the Web.
Scott Karp, an online blogger, has stopped reading books despite being a literature major in college.
He thinks that the way he thinks has changed, not the way he reads.
5) Bruce Friedman, another blogger, agrees his
1) The author begins the article with a description of the closing scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey when Dave dismantles the memory circuits of Hal, the artificial brain that controls the space ship.
2) The author feels that someone has been tinkering with his brain, making it change.
He no longer enjoys reading a book of any length because he cannot sustain concentration on the book.
3) He feels that all the time he now spends online is affecting his abilities to concentrate.
He recognizes that the Internet has been a useful tool for him to search for information and communicate.
He notes that, unlike footnotes, links send you to the information rather than just refer to it.
3) The Internet has become a universal medium to access information.
He cites Wired magazine’s Clive Thompson who believes the Internet aids thinking.
The author feels the benefit, however, comes with a price.
He cites Marshall McLuhan who noted in the 1960s that media are not passive channels of information.
Media supplies the content of thought but also shape the process of thought.
The Internet seems to be affecting his ability to concentrate and contemplate.
His mind wants information to take in information the way the Internet distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.
Instead of being a diver in the sea of words, he sees himself as a guy on a Jet Ski.
4) Other people are having similar problems staying focused after using the Web.
Scott Karp, an online blogger, has stopped reading books despite being a literature major in college.
He thinks that the way he thinks has changed, not the way he reads.
5) Bruce Friedman, another blogger, agrees his