A Long Break and a New Book

Sorry for the long hiatus.  Work has been exceptionally busy with the start of school plus several intensive renovation and upgrade projects.

I've been reading through The Shallows by Nicholas Carr recently.  Ironically, since the subtitle of his book is What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, I'm reading it in eBook form in iBooks on my iPod.  As a result, citations will be no more specific that what chapter I found them in, because I have no easy way to give page numbers.  Now, for some thought-provoking quotes (all taken from The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains).

From Chapter Three:

"Our technologies can be divided, roughly, into four categories, according to the way they supplement or amplify our native capacities."

 I appreciated his summary of technology, according to function: strength, senses, reshaping nature, and "intellectual," including computers and books.

From Chapter Four:

"Our fast-paced, reflexive shifts in focus were once crucial to our survival."

 This is in the midst of a discussion of the transition from distraction to immersing yourself in a book.  Obviously this flows out of an evolutionary view which assumes language and writing developed gradually rather than very early (cf. written records described in Genesis).  But, assuming there was such a transition (though not due to evolution, but rather due to growth of early ancient metropolitan areas or other factors), it would be ironic that we have seemingly come full cycle, from distracted reading among much toil, to dedicated reading, back to distracted reading among much leisure today.

From Chapter Four as well:

"Whether a person is immersed in a bodice ripper or a Psalter, the synaptic effects are largely the same."

Whether or not this is true, it is definite that the spiritual effects are not the same.  Still, it is hard for me to imagine that the type of reading won't impact the brain as well.  Obviously there are significant perceptual or conceptual differences between a literate and an illiterate person, but it would seem logical that there would be similar, though less noticeable, differences between a reader who primarily consumes romance novels and a reader of classics, like The Count of Monte Cristo.  But this remains to be seen.