Some relevant links:
- The author Nicholas Carr has written extensively on the way the internet is changing the way we read, most famously in an article called "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" and most recently in a book called The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains. Nicholas Carr's blog/website is here, and you can read some reviews/summaries of his book here, here, and here.
- "Ten Reading Revolutions Before E-Books"
- A critique of the reading revolution idea
Dr. K
I think that although not revolutionary, the internet is created a significant change in the way in which people read and process information. The internet presents information in a more compact, summarized way that allows and tempts readers to simply scan texts for key ideas. For example, the command F feature lets a reader find a key word or phrase in seconds, rather than minutes if he or she were to have to read through a written document. This style of reading and analyzation is allowing people to read less thoughtfully, but perhaps with more accuracy.
ReplyDeleteWell, that depends on what you mean by "accurately." "Not seeing the forest for the trees" is a kind of accuracy (in that I see the trees) but at another level it shows misunderstanding, and therefore inaccuracy. If we end up picking bits and pieces out of documents, that will transform the way we understand texts. Whether that's good or bad depends, I think, on what you're hoping to accomplish. But I would tend to view it as problematic--based on experience with people who do that, and then misunderstand a test.
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