it also makes me wish I had my Forster collection with me

[fahye]

I've been going to the local library to get study done in the afternoons, and taken to reading books in my breaks but then putting them back onto the shelf instead of borrowing them, as a way of making myself come back to the library the next day. Today I started a book by Susan Hill called Howards End Is On The Landing, a very pleasant sort of autobiography via her personal project to spend a year only rereading books on her own shelf, not buying new ones. In the introductory chapter I came across this quote:

Too much internet usage fragments the brain and dissipates concentration so that after a while, one's ability to spend long, focused hours immersed in a single subject becomes blunted. Information comes pre-digested in small pieces, one grazes on endless ready-meals and snacks of the mind, and the result is mental malnutrition.

Ouch.

I'm pretty sure it's true (at least as far as my personal usage patterns go), and I'm also sure that it's crunch time as far as passing medical school unscathed and sane goes, so I'm doing a small friends list cull in the name of spending fewer hours per day online. It's mostly based on diverged fandomly interests; feel totally free to stop following my journal if you wish, or stick around, I don't make many locked posts :)

Comments

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

I... I'm not sure I entirely agree, but I have noticed that the internet has changed the way I read things. I struggle to read just _one_ thing straight through - I want things hyperlinked, damnit. This is also a product of academia, though - I don't just want to read one thing, I want to read all the things around it.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

It certainly may not be true for everyone! But I know my own attention span is Not What It Was.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Mine neither! But I'm not sure that's all bad. I think in... webs, now, which is Very Good for my kind of work and certainly not a skill my undergrads have mastered.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

It's definitely bad when it comes to my ability to sustain focus on my medical notes :( And I also think it's affecting my writing.

[ashen_key]

See, to me, that just reads as another tired old claim that the internet causes ADD.

Which, no.

But then again, I LIKE the internet because it works well with how my brain focuses, so.

[tammaiya.livejournal.com]

The way I understand it - which, you know, I have no idea whether there is any scientific evidence backing this theory, it's just what I've heard and it sounded reasonable to me - was that electronic mediums like the internet build up a different skillset than more traditional forms of study or recreation. So it's not necessarily a bad thing, it's not like the internet causes ADD, but it is a tradeoff - the brain develops a more enhanced ability to multitask and process information quickly, but in exchange it loses some skill at sustained focus on a single topic.

I think that was the gist of it, anyway.

[ashen_key]

*nods* That does make sense. But I suppose I've seen too many articles insinuate that it's the cause of rising ADD, and thus - by implication - all we who have ADD need to do is concentrate and we'll get better. So, I do admit on this I'm a bit senstive.