Forum link: http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2009/12/multitasking-boon-or-bane-a-new-britannica-forum/

Comments welcome!

Barb Schreiber
The Britannica Blog
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

I like your description of the digital library as an extension of the traditional one, as it seems to emphasize continuity. I think it’s important in this debate not to perceive the new as a replacement of the old, but as an added layer. I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that empirical evidence supports your view that new media actually proliferates its predecessors rather than eradicating them.

I agree that the age of digital literacy is here and it’s here to stay…but that doesn’t mean that it would oblitrate traditional literature…..just like the advent of television, didn’t eradicate the need or use of radio, in fact we have more radio stations now than ever….same way wikis and blogs can’t replace books…I’m an avid reader and to me a digital library is an extension of the traditional one.

I explore new media, Eyal. I live in it — in SL. I’m all over it. But, I don’t believe in the theory around it and being embedded in it against our wills by coders.

What services are they offering? Widgets that enable me to bite someone in a play vampire game on Facebook?

I knew that would get me into trouble. Your point about Zen being attention is well taken; I’ll have to give that some more thought.

For the record, when comparing it to Zen I’m more referring to the kind of thin-slicing that Gladwell talked about in Blink, like in exceptional athletes or cops under fire, rather than jumping between hyperlinks. The kind that requires deep expertise to accomplish, but when applied it is almost immediate. It feels like there’s some parallel there.

Genius cartoons, by the way. The one you linked to was very on point.

I do believe technology marches inexorably forward, and that in the process it amputates some human faculties along the way. This seems to me self-evident, but I am open to contrary views (any links?). I also think technology is morally neutral, not inherently “destructive” or “oppressive.”

So we have a choice: we can either remain within the comfort zone of existing media which we understand, or we can explore the potential of the new media. The former approach, it seems to me, is rooted in fear of the unknown, while the latter requires courage. Trev said it very well in his comment above:

“In order to cope and transition, we need to see evolving skills as complementary rather than contrary.”

Finally, I do not “privilege myself as some sort of scientist.” This blog is intended to chart an exploration of ideas, that’s all. My “judgments” are not gospel, and I don’t want to “force others” to do or think anything.

One very big application? I think not. The “weakened clientele” you speak of are the same people actually authoring services, extending platforms and providing content. They are not weak at all. If they demand better tools then the tools will get better.

By the way, wearables do exist. Check out Steve Mann.

This is going to sound a little mystical, but I believe that at some core level, deep contemplative thinking and thin-slicing are the same thing. Zen Buddhism and Taoism both teach living in the moment, forgetting time.

Someone once asked a Zen teacher to sum up Zen in a single word, and he said, “Attention.” Flitting from hyperlink to hyperlink is not (necessarily) paying attention. Zen trains our minds to do what is not always easy. That’s why it’s work. Deep contemplative thinking is hard; thin-slicing is (generally) easy.

Easy things are fine. I don’t spend all my time reading Dante; I watch 30 Rock, too. Sometimes I do this. I’m not arguing against the Internets; I’m arguing in favor of (as in Catherine Fitzpatrick’s example above) 100-year-old books, especially ones with Spinoza references in their titles.

There aren’t any wearables. That’s something in Rainbow’s End, a *book* and a work of fiction.

You’re happy to have the dissidents’ blood on the wall, because they need to “accept reality”. Here you are suddenly lamenting that technologies “destroyed their share of human faculties” but in fact, in the end, you celebrate the destruction because you claim it is inevitable, and mandatory. You can’t turn back the clock. Billions will stampede, etc. You insist technological change is inevitable — and you privilege yourself as some sort of scientist that will a) get to make a judgement about this b) evade its effect on himself c) somehow force others to adapt.

It’s wrong.

The Internet does dumb people down, but it is not irreversible change, nor as stark as you portray it — it’s reversible, it’s controllable, and it’s not the case that there’s some charging Hegelian imperative here of “progress” that marches along leaving breakage in its wake that we “must” adapt to.

Books are still here. People don’t adapt — and that’s fine. There is nothing inherently “progress” about destructive technology — it is actually a profoundly conservative force in that it prevents the modern liberal faculties of freedom, democracy, equal participation, etc.

These concerns aren’t just because the tools are “young” — they have these awful features already welded into them. They aren’t getting better, but all the APIs and proliferation of services are making more disintegration and creating a vast and very weakened clientele for them which then makes the situation rife for one very big application, like Microsoft, simply to move in and remove all the annoyances. Lotus 123 was too hard to use and annoying to learn; Wordperfect wasn’t; pretty soon everybody used Word.

“You extremists?” Ouch. I’m not trying to ridicule anyone, and I’m not attributing fear to just my opponents. To the contrary, I’m scared too. The implications of our transition to connectives is overwhelming. The difference is I admit it, and try to see it for the scary process that it is. To just call it “dumb” or “stupid” and be done with it is avoiding the question entirely. That’s why I appreciate Birkerts position so much – he’s clearly worried and a little sad, but is exploring all the same.

Many of your other conerns (i.e. PageRank’s implicit groupthink) are shortcomings of the tools. Remember, these tools are young. They will get better (I hope).

Your book sounds wonderful. I love books. I love pen and paper even more. That doesn’t mean those technologies didn’t destroy their share of human faculties along the way.