I've also recently been feeling some internet fatigue.
It's occured to me that the internet encourages* bite-size pieces of content.
I sit on reddit and complain that it's getting too 4chan, with stupid lolcats, cartoons, FMLs, short bloggettes, and so on. Cheap, quick, unintellectual nuggets. But with some harsher self-observation, I realise that as I scan down the list I go for the cheap and quick nuggets. I open a pic, smirk, close tab, next. I open an 8 page article and think, crikey, tl;dr, close without reading. I open a 90 second youtube and will watch it, I open a 14 minute youtube and think "oh I can't be bothered to devote that long to this". Whereas in "real life" I will happily read a lengthy national geographic article in one sitting, and television tends to come in minimum 30 minute chunks.
I started reading the Baroque Cycle last month (not done yet, no spoilers please!), after Anathem before that, and it struck me how these 17th century RS people didn't have flushing toilets yet they were dedicated to knowing at least the fundamentals of philosophy, logic, maths, biology, chemisty, physics, rhetoric, etc as part of being a standard 'decently educated' person. I have a degree, too, and live in a pampered world of extreme convenience, but I have only the vaguest pop science grasp of E=mc^2, linguistic structuralism, the socratic method or whatever else. I ask myself why I'm letting myself sit on forums and get depressed by the deja vu of ever-repeating ill-informed / tabloid-level soundbites and debates, about, say, Iraq, instead of reading a serious book on the sociopolitical history of the middle east. Why am I skimming yet another "top 5 shiny css background examples" instead of thoroughly perusing a textbook of fundamental design principles? Why do I find myself link-surfing my way around WP to a biography of Russell, but never tackling Principia Mathematica?
So I'm now hoping to consciously curb my "just one more F5..." time-frittering, and spend more time bringing myself up to speed on all aspects of a well-rounded intellectual the old fashioned way: books.
* I say "encourage" rather than "force" because I am well aware the syndrome I describe comes down to personal choice and the reality is that it's my fault and not the internet's fault, so please don't argue with me on that basis, I know that. I know that in theory the internet, being an information-delivery-and-exchange medium, is capable of HELPING me in 'serious' self-improvement. I know that, for example, TED talks are highly regarded by many people as a means of engaging themselves with new areas of knowledge and learning. I can only speak for myself in saying I don't like videos, I don't seem to do well at reading long articles on screen, and I don't seem to be able to maintain attention span on the internet without ctrl-tabbing every 30 seconds. Much better for me personally to step away from the computer, recline on my sofa or bed and focus on some dead trees.
It's occured to me that the internet encourages* bite-size pieces of content.
I sit on reddit and complain that it's getting too 4chan, with stupid lolcats, cartoons, FMLs, short bloggettes, and so on. Cheap, quick, unintellectual nuggets. But with some harsher self-observation, I realise that as I scan down the list I go for the cheap and quick nuggets. I open a pic, smirk, close tab, next. I open an 8 page article and think, crikey, tl;dr, close without reading. I open a 90 second youtube and will watch it, I open a 14 minute youtube and think "oh I can't be bothered to devote that long to this". Whereas in "real life" I will happily read a lengthy national geographic article in one sitting, and television tends to come in minimum 30 minute chunks.
I started reading the Baroque Cycle last month (not done yet, no spoilers please!), after Anathem before that, and it struck me how these 17th century RS people didn't have flushing toilets yet they were dedicated to knowing at least the fundamentals of philosophy, logic, maths, biology, chemisty, physics, rhetoric, etc as part of being a standard 'decently educated' person. I have a degree, too, and live in a pampered world of extreme convenience, but I have only the vaguest pop science grasp of E=mc^2, linguistic structuralism, the socratic method or whatever else. I ask myself why I'm letting myself sit on forums and get depressed by the deja vu of ever-repeating ill-informed / tabloid-level soundbites and debates, about, say, Iraq, instead of reading a serious book on the sociopolitical history of the middle east. Why am I skimming yet another "top 5 shiny css background examples" instead of thoroughly perusing a textbook of fundamental design principles? Why do I find myself link-surfing my way around WP to a biography of Russell, but never tackling Principia Mathematica?
So I'm now hoping to consciously curb my "just one more F5..." time-frittering, and spend more time bringing myself up to speed on all aspects of a well-rounded intellectual the old fashioned way: books.
* I say "encourage" rather than "force" because I am well aware the syndrome I describe comes down to personal choice and the reality is that it's my fault and not the internet's fault, so please don't argue with me on that basis, I know that. I know that in theory the internet, being an information-delivery-and-exchange medium, is capable of HELPING me in 'serious' self-improvement. I know that, for example, TED talks are highly regarded by many people as a means of engaging themselves with new areas of knowledge and learning. I can only speak for myself in saying I don't like videos, I don't seem to do well at reading long articles on screen, and I don't seem to be able to maintain attention span on the internet without ctrl-tabbing every 30 seconds. Much better for me personally to step away from the computer, recline on my sofa or bed and focus on some dead trees.