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February 25, 2011
In We owe the internet for changing the world. Now let's learn how to turn off in The Guardian Jonathan Freedland recycles an old criticism of social media advanced by Nicholas Carr in The Shallows. Freedland is part of the backlash against social media by a movement of social media critics.
Freedland says:
What the internet has done, say the dissenters, is damage our ability to concentrate for sustained periods. Being connected meant being constantly tempted to look away, to hop from the text in front of you to another, newer one. This, the worriers fear, is not just irritating; it might even damage our civilisation. How capable will people be of creating great works if they are constantly interrupted, even when alone?
Twitter is distracting us westerners from our important work of deep reading and deep thinking and so we have a crisis of concentration brought on by a crisis of distraction.
What can be done to save us?
Freedland says that we cannot turn back time. Nor, given the internet's power for good currently on display around the Middle East, should we want to. But we need to reassert control. We need, in short, to rediscover the off switch. So we turn off the BlackBerry or iPhone, ignore Facebook, and shun Twitter.
And then what? Return to the world of books that we cannot afford? Read the op-eds in Rupert Murdoch's trashy newspapers?
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