Digital dumb-down?
September 12, 2008
“Is Google making us stupid?” asks reviewer Paul Boutin in his WSJ review of Neal Stephenson’s latest book.
Good question, I thought to myself. Can it be true that there is a very dark side to the convenience of “googling” rather than researching the hard way?
“The threat of digital dumb-down has prompted science-fiction author Neal Stephenson, in “Anathem,” to concoct a deliciously nerdy alternative world, one populated by characters who possess what he calls “attention surplus disorder.” The 937-page novel isn’t a cautionary tale; it’s an escapist fantasy for readers who miss the joys of studious immersion in math, science and philosophy. What if, Mr. Stephenson wonders, the world’s most earnest intellectuals cloistered themselves, shunning any thought of Internet video or quarterly results, to focus on 1,000-year projects? If word problems got you excited in school, this is the novel for you.
I groan a bit at the prospect of adding yet another book to my Mt. ToBeRead, already in danger of becoming snow-topped, but the last paragraph in the review is a real grabber.
The third act, in which Erasmus and friends suit up to save the world, is a throwback to classic sci-fi. It feels like literary red meat and comes as something of a relief after so much cerebration. But the lasting satisfaction of “Anathem” derives not from the action but from Mr. Stephenson’s wry contempt for today’s just-Google-it mindset. His prose is dense, but his worldview contagious. Three hundred pages in, I fervently resolved to shut down my blog and spend the next millennium reading books.
Shut down my blog? Will it really come to this? (Oh, my!)
Dave, his finger hovering over “Buy now with 1-Click.”
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I’ll have to read that book, Dad! I’m a fan of Stephenson’s earlier novels, as you know, and I’m interested in the issue he raises: are attention spans declining? I’ve noticed recently that most magazines, even those aimed at an educated audience (Natural History and Scientific American come to mind) are featuring less long articles and more paragraph-sized “text-bites”, short features which can be read in a minute or two.
Of course the entire publishing industry is in decline, fighting what might be a losing battle with video and the net.
The publishing industry as it has existed is certainly in decline. That is good news, ultimately. I’m not imaginative enough to see where it is going, but my gut says that we will be better off for it.