Earlier in the year I began a series for the Colson Center on ways that
new technologies are training our brains not to be attentive in ways
necessary for reading. I pointed out that the real challenges brought by
the internet are easily overlooked, since it has nothing to do with
what actually happens when we are engaged in activities like
web-surfing, Facebook or Twitter, but what happens when we are not
engaged in these activities.
Indeed, just as the problems caused by pornography
sometimes only become evident when a man tries to have a relationship
with a real woman, so the problems caused by social media may only
become evident when one actually tries to read a book or engage in a
normal conversation.
I also suggest that in a society that values
efficiency over depth and productivity over quality, it is becoming
increasingly hard to let books work their slow and strange magic on us,
to let them change us into richer and deeper people. Indeed, reading
soul-enlarging old books becomes one of the chief casualties in this
cultural shift to prioritize what is functional over what is beautiful,
what is transitory over that which is permanent and what is entertaining
over what is enriching. To read my articles on this subject, click on
the following links:
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