In an ordinary neighborhood in an average family room, a typical family conducts their regular routine. A young man talks on the phone while he plays computer games online. His sister texts while she watches YouTube. Dad pours through hundreds of emails. Mom checks blogs between a hundred other tasks.
Technology certainly has the power to improve our quality of life and make us more efficient. But it also has the potential to make our lives noisy and capricious.
When I was young, I read incessantly. My friends would come over to play and, despite the fact that I love sports, I would often politely say “no thank you” and go back upstairs to read.
I’m having a harder time reading for long periods of time than I used to. Of course, I read (and respond to) a lot of emails and I read blogs. But my mind seems to drift more often than it used to when I try to read long articles or books. The author of this article from The Atlantic Monthly feels the same way, and he blames technology.
I was very interested in the article, yet, after the first five or six paragraphs, I found myself drifting, as I do more and more often when I read sequentially for long periods of time. I persisted and found myself nodding my head in support as he made most of his points.
What are we allowing technology to do to us?
Take a look at the article and let me know what you think (if you make it through the whole thing).
Continue reading at the original source →