Jessica Alfieri

writes everything you see here.

• Concentration. Are you ready? If so, let’s go.

  Jul 7, 2008 tagged as brain, concentration, distraction, internet

  I noticed recently that when I pick up a book, my eyeballs expect to cross the page in the same way they cross the screen, where I now do 90% of my reading.  (FAST.)

  So Nicholas Carr’s question this month is of much importance to me.  (Go there and find out if Google is making us stupid; finding out may make you smarter!)  Here, he laments his missing ability to immerse himself in a deep read.

  Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

  Carr, I’m right there with you. It’s as if I’m eleven again, stuck inside on a beautiful day, reading near a window where I can hear friends play outside.

  I’m constantly scanning my surroundings to see it there’s something else to pay attention to.  This is also true of time spent not reading at all.  Quietly doing anything leads my brain to wander, and wonder, “What’s up?” “Anything else on?”

  What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.

  The way we get our information online has instilled a remote-flipping mentality in every other aspect of life. But maybe that’s not so bad.  Who’s to say that deep focus on a single book is better than broad focus on a set of interlinked ideas?

  Either way, what I publish here feeds it: welcome to the land of short, skimmable paragraphs, people.  We hope you enjoy your changed brain.

  *Title source.  Remember this game?