[HN Gopher] Eyes That Bite ___________________________________________________________________ Eyes That Bite Author : samclemens Score : 28 points Date : 2022-12-23 20:06 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (www.lrb.co.uk) (TXT) w3m dump (www.lrb.co.uk) | wpietri wrote: | "... I am sure Wolf is accurate to the MRIs when she says that | the shift to digital has made skimming the new norm. Scrolling | and swiping have increased our ability to survey large amounts of | information, but they do not engage those areas of the reading | brain where we imagine and are moved by the lives of others. We | have, in neurological terms, an app for that and it is no longer | being switched on." | | Ouch. Right between the eyes. Lately I've been mournfully | surveying my bookshelves and realizing how much my reading has | shifted away from whole books. In trying to get back to it, I | feel like in some ways I'm learning to read all over again. | yummypaint wrote: | The article brings to mind the cognitive changes associated | with literacy. As socrates put it at the time: _You have not | discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you | provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with | its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many | things without being properly taught, and they will imagine | that they have come to know much while for the most part they | will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along | with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of | really being so._ These days when people hear about someone | reciting an hour long story from memory after hearing it once, | the assumption is they must be some kind of savant, but it used | to be much more commonplace. | | I worry particular about broad systematic losses in empathy | relative to the previous baseline. Maybe this is a side-effect | of changes to our attention, but it sounds like a much bigger | problem. Writing made us more forgetful, but it also had | tremendous upsides. I struggle to see comparable benefits from | the skim/filter mindset. It seems like it's more of a defensive | reaction to the amount of garbage online than something that | can elevate human thought as a transformative mental tool. | alar44 wrote: | Who cares? A couple hundred years ago the avg person couldn't | read at all. I find it annoying that people equate long form | writing with "the default way humans are supposed to be". The | default normal way of a human is being a shit chucking ape in | the woods. Give yourself some fucking credit. | wpietri wrote: | I obviously care. And I didn't equate the two things. | | The average state of the universe is hard vacuum with a | sprinkling of hydrogen, but I'm still going to aim a bit | higher myself. You do you, though. | spockz wrote: | This resonates. It seems like on digital I have become very | adapt at skimming and filtering text to see whether it is | relevant but once I found something it is that much harder to | let it _really_ sink in. | williamsmj wrote: | You might enjoy Wolf's appearance on Ezra Klein's podcast | https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/22/opinion/ezra-klein- | podcas.... | neonate wrote: | http://web.archive.org/web/20221224173133/https://www.lrb.co... | | https://archive.ph/UWZlY ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-24 23:00 UTC)