Dozens of people wrote to share
their own stories of how the Web has scattered their attention, parched their
memory, or turned them into compulsive nibblers of info-snacks. I was
particularly struck by the large number of notes that came from young people-
high-schoolers, college kids, twentysomethings. They fear that constant
connectivity may be constricting rather than expanding their horizons. Some of
their stories are poignant. One college senior sent me a long e-mail describing
how he has struggled “with a moderate to major form of Internet addiction”
since the third grade. “I am unable to focus on anything in a deep or detailed
manner,” he wrote. “The only thing my mind can do, indeed the only thing it
wants to do, is plug back into that distracted frenzied blitz of online
information.” He is drawn back into the Web even though he knows that “the
happiest and most fulfilled times of my life have all involved a prolonged
separation from the Internet.”…
Of course, in conjuring up a big
anti-Net backlash, I may be indulging in a fantasy of my own. After all, the
internet tide continues to well. In the months since I completed The Shallows, Facebook membership has
doubled from 300 million to 600 million; the number of text messages processed
every month by the typical American teen has jumped from 2,300 to 3,300; sales
of e-readers, tablets, and smartphones have skyrocketed; app stores have proliferated;
elementary schools have rushed to put iPads in their students’ hands; and the
time we spend in front of screens has continued its seemingly inexorable rise.
We may be wary of what our devices are doing to us, but we’re using them more
than ever. And yet, history tells us, it’s only against such powerful cultural
currents that countercultural movements take shape.
… it’s a small boat. But there’s
still plenty of room inside. Feel free to grab an oar.
The Shallows, p. 226,228
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