For these last few weeks, I have had nothing to do, resulting in my sleeping pattern, well, matching my media habits more than the day/night cycle. In an effort that will probably turn out to be in vain, I just stayed up all night so that hopefully I'll be tired enough this evening to sleep at a reasonable hour and get everything back in sync. After all, when the clock strikes 04:00, you can tell there isn't much point in attempting sleep. After finishing a film, I set about my tasks for the day, the first of which was to sort out my iTunes library on my desktop PC so that I actually had my various podcast subscriptions accessible somewhere other than my iPod. While waiting for the 80GB iTunes library to transfer to another disk, I pulled a book off the shelf.
My bookshelf is, sadly, rather a decorative feature, a memorial to a bygone era and an everlasting glimmer of potential hope. That said, the 'optical media' shelf directly below it, holding several DVD boxsets and my physical Xbox 360 gaming collection, is almost as untouched. The difference between the two (or three) mediums though is that I can still absorb visual media. Well, I've become rather disenchanted with gaming at the moment, but I'm assuming that'll pass, although I'm sure my wallet will wish otherwise.
Anyway, to my point - the book I pulled off the shelf was The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, the sort of non-fiction book that ought to appeal to me. The subtitle of the book is "How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember", and only a couple of pages in to chapter one I feel a certain resonance. The thoughts themselves aren't shocking revelations to me, but they are a moment of clarity. I used to read all the time. Well, I still read nowadays, perhaps more than ever, but I used to read paper all the time. Considered, edited, and published words were the expectation and that was exactly what my eyes received. Since "I cannot tell a lie", The Shallows is the first physical book I have picked up to read in quite some time. However, let's focus on the first part of that sentence, the quotation. To be absolute certain that it was in fact George Washington who people claim originally said that, what did I do? Googled it. What would I have done in the days before my access to the internet? Perhaps gone to a library and trawled through book after book in the hope of ever finding it, or just not bothered to spruce up my words - not that the quote was completely necessary. But this is the point - I relied on the internet to give me the answer. Not only that, but I expected it instantly, and received it instantly. The difference between Carr and me is that I grew up with the internet rather than evolved into it. Not that evolving into it hasn't in Carr's eyes left him unscathed - it still has an effect, but I'm even more concerned about my generation, who barely know of any alternative. At a glance, you wouldn't think it's an issue as the internet certainly doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon (SOPA etc. aside), however, it's creating an overreliance. I expect to have the answer to life, the universe and everything at my fingertips in a snap. But what happens when I am without technology? Putting it extremely, I'm at a complete loss and have no idea how to accomplish anything. Seriously. I've often said that I don't have a good memory, which isn't strictly true, as I am extremely good at remembering where I was when I heard something and what people have told me, but when it comes to facts, figures, quotes,... general public information - I can barely remember anything, because I don't 'need' to. Why do I remember the former type of information? Presumably some competitive part of my mind saying "this is how you can sometimes one-up people when they forget" - evidently it doesn't think remembering information to pass exams is as important.
So far I've clumsily explained why the information side of the internet has ruined me, so now on to the related part of that to do with traditional media. I cannot focus on books. I don't know why, well, I do, it's because of technology, but I wish that wasn't the case. I'm good at skimming online news articles, or even reading them in full, but when it comes to paperback books, my mind lacks the focus it once had. The slightly odd part is, I managed to read three debatably trashy novels on my iPod with iBooks and maintained focus, but I'm unsure as to whether my concentration held because it was consumed on a digital device, or just because of the unchallenging subject nature of said novels. I do keep trying to ease myself back in to reading, but so far it just hasn't clicked back in to place yet.
Now if you'll excuse me Mr Carr, I've got an internet to waste my time on.