Can Internet addicts still read books?

[jwag57]

Up until a few years ago I used to be a voracious reader. As soon as I finished one book I would start another. I also enjoyed reading long magazine articles, in actual print magazines. Then, little by little, something started happening. I found that I couldn't concentrate on reading long passages of one item at a time. I stopped reading novels and switched to non-fiction, which is easier to read in bits and pieces. Then even these books started collecting dust on my bookshelf. I tried to tell myself it was lack of time, but I sure had plenty of time to read hundreds of blurbs on the Internet each day. Was something wrong with my brain that I couldn't process large amounts of information at once?

I think I found my answer the other day when I came across an article by Nicholas Carr in the July/August 2008 Atlantic Monthly, What the Internet is doing to our brains: Is Google Making Us Stupid? The author was writing about my problem. Carr wrote that he uses the Internet all the time, that it is a wonderful research tool, he uses it for work and personal, loves the hyperlinks and raves about the advantages of immediate access to so much information. However, there is a price for all of this:

"And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for
concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in
information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream
of particles."

He says that his friends are having the same problems:

"The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused
on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers I follow have also
begun mentioning the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about
online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books
altogether."

Although these are anecdotal, Carr also notes that the results of a research study show that Internet users tend to develop skimming habits and move from one source to another and would often not go back to unfinished sources.

My first thought after reading this article (which, of course, I had trouble finishing) was that at least there isn't something wrong with me. Then I thought that I'm going to have to work extra hard if I want to read books again because I know I'm not giving up on the Internet. But then something else started to bother me. Does Internet use have the same effect on reading on young people such as teenagers? I remembered the times that I saw an article in a magazine about one of my son's favorite bands or actors and showed it to him and he replied "It's too long". They do read books, but less than I did at their age. Who's to say. They've never had it any other way, so it might effect them differently.

What do you think? Has this happened to any of you? Do you think this effects teenagers reading? Please let us know.


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