Commentary on technologies of reading, writing, research, and, generally, knowledge. As these technologies change and develop, what do we lose, what do we gain, what is (fundamentally or trivially) altered? And, not least, what’s fun?
By: Alan Jacobs
May 20, 2011
May 20, 2011
Erin O’Connor on the great power of a simple idea: Teaching high school for a year at a very interesting little Berkshire boarding school got me onto shared class reading projects–the kids I was teaching were very smart, but, like most kids these days, just didn’t have much experience reading. So we read and read out loud together,...
May 20, 2011
A few days late, but this is an interesting article: It’s an assertion I’ve heard many times when a child has attention problems. Sometimes parents make the same point about television: My child can sit and watch for hours — he can’t have A.D.H.D. In fact, a child’s ability to stay focused on a screen, though not anywhere else,...
May 19, 2011
May 18, 2011
A conversation on Twitter the other day reminded me of my earliest experiences with online life. It was in 1992 that I learned that I could have my college computer connected to something called the “Internet” — though I don’t know how I learned it, or what I thought the Internet was. I had a Mac SE/30 at the time — the...
May 17, 2011
The very talented designer of the Gospel of the Trees website, Brad Cathey, has just added a page to indicate the most recent changes. Several people have asked for something like this, so your wish is our command.
May 15, 2011
Yesterday I got this email from Amazon: We’re writing about your past Kindle purchase of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. The version you received had missing content and typos that have been corrected. An updated version of The Lord of the Rings (ASIN:B0026REBFK) is now available. It’s important to note that...
May 14, 2011
I see that my book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction is now available on Amazon. Only sixteen left in stock! I now must resume the spiritual discipline of not checking the book’s Amazon sales rank. That way madness lies. In celebration of this great event, my friends at The New Atlantis are hosting a big event. Be...
May 13, 2011
Nick Carr, who sent me the link that led to this post on how college students read on Kindles, has followed up with his own thoughts. Check them out.
May 13, 2011
A long quotation here, from John Gray’s review of a new book by Brian Christian: So, what human abilities did Christian exercise that the computers could not mimic? With a degree in computing and philosophy, he is also a poet, and summarises one of the book’s most compelling insights when he writes: “If poetry represents...