[HN Gopher] Eyes That Bite
___________________________________________________________________
Eyes That Bite
Author : samclemens
Score : 28 points
Date : 2022-12-23 20:06 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lrb.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lrb.co.uk)
| wpietri wrote:
| "... I am sure Wolf is accurate to the MRIs when she says that
| the shift to digital has made skimming the new norm. Scrolling
| and swiping have increased our ability to survey large amounts of
| information, but they do not engage those areas of the reading
| brain where we imagine and are moved by the lives of others. We
| have, in neurological terms, an app for that and it is no longer
| being switched on."
|
| Ouch. Right between the eyes. Lately I've been mournfully
| surveying my bookshelves and realizing how much my reading has
| shifted away from whole books. In trying to get back to it, I
| feel like in some ways I'm learning to read all over again.
| yummypaint wrote:
| The article brings to mind the cognitive changes associated
| with literacy. As socrates put it at the time: _You have not
| discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you
| provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with
| its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many
| things without being properly taught, and they will imagine
| that they have come to know much while for the most part they
| will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along
| with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of
| really being so._ These days when people hear about someone
| reciting an hour long story from memory after hearing it once,
| the assumption is they must be some kind of savant, but it used
| to be much more commonplace.
|
| I worry particular about broad systematic losses in empathy
| relative to the previous baseline. Maybe this is a side-effect
| of changes to our attention, but it sounds like a much bigger
| problem. Writing made us more forgetful, but it also had
| tremendous upsides. I struggle to see comparable benefits from
| the skim/filter mindset. It seems like it's more of a defensive
| reaction to the amount of garbage online than something that
| can elevate human thought as a transformative mental tool.
| alar44 wrote:
| Who cares? A couple hundred years ago the avg person couldn't
| read at all. I find it annoying that people equate long form
| writing with "the default way humans are supposed to be". The
| default normal way of a human is being a shit chucking ape in
| the woods. Give yourself some fucking credit.
| wpietri wrote:
| I obviously care. And I didn't equate the two things.
|
| The average state of the universe is hard vacuum with a
| sprinkling of hydrogen, but I'm still going to aim a bit
| higher myself. You do you, though.
| spockz wrote:
| This resonates. It seems like on digital I have become very
| adapt at skimming and filtering text to see whether it is
| relevant but once I found something it is that much harder to
| let it _really_ sink in.
| williamsmj wrote:
| You might enjoy Wolf's appearance on Ezra Klein's podcast
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/22/opinion/ezra-klein-
| podcas....
| neonate wrote:
| http://web.archive.org/web/20221224173133/https://www.lrb.co...
|
| https://archive.ph/UWZlY
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-12-24 23:00 UTC)