Forget reading, let’s talk about Thinking

I had the good fortune to read Carr’s article when it was first published in 2008. I would say that at that time I was on track to becoming something exactly like he describes in the article, a so-called “power browser” skimming over blog posts like a water skier hooked to a runaway boat with endless fuel. Then I guess I jumped too low over a shark and it got angry and bit off my leg.

This article was that shark.

I remember the disgust I felt at myself when I realized I’d let the interwebs dictate my reading style. One particular moment of shame came when I looked at my bookmark list and saw dozens of bookmarks of websites I had skimmed but never read, always planning to return later to fully digest.  That, of course, never happened.

I took my sad realizations to heart and immediately decided to make a drastic change. I stopped using the iGoogle feature, I cleaned out my bookmarks list, and I resolved not to visit my Google Reader page until I had cured what I deemed as a sickness. To this day I am  still “kicking” the internet. My reading habits are returned to their pre-blog levels, I find I can concentrate better on single tasks without being distracted, and I have no real desire to intermingle with the  multitude of useless memes that represent my generation’s contribution to the internet.

One of the biggest changes I noticed after this purging was my thinking. I think when teachers argue, “Johnny can’t write a coherent, well-structured essay,” she really should be saying, “Johnny can’t think a coherent, well-structured essay.” One can be the best, most expressive writer in the world, but if one’s writing is deficient in logicality–that is, the transitions betweens ideas and sentences–it will come out as a jumbled mess. The internet does not reward linear, logical thinking. It teaches us to scatter our brains, to move onto the next meal without even digesting the first. Translated to writing, this behavior results in a chain of related but unconnected ideas that never get tied together. Thus, if a student is to learn how to write “properly” (by which I mean in the traditional, formal sense), she must first be disabused of this mercurial mindset.

My first question, then, is how? I have written about my method. Do you think I was too drastic in pursuing this draconian scorched earth info-detox? Can one live in harmony with the internet, resist its alluring offer to increase brain productivity at the loss of depth and understanding while still harvesting the bounty of what the internet really offers? Or must one “chop off one’s nose to save one’s face” (not the usual idiom!)?

My second question is: What are you going to do? If you agree with Carr, if you feel these deleterious effects occurring in your brain and are loathe to have them continue, will you take action to prevent them from continuing? If so, how? If not, why the devil not!?