Fleeting thoughts

How the internet is eating my brain | Janie B. Cheaney

Now I know why my attention span has shortened and my concentration level has dropped. It's not age, it's excess.

I've suspected this for a long time, ever since merging onto the info-bahn and ratcheting up the speed. With more to read, I've sensed a decline in reading skills. It's harder to fix on one topic or question and follow it through a logical development. My mind catches a flicker off to one side and abandons the subject to chase it. The Information Superhighway, as Al Gore liked to call it, is pitted with hyperlinks. Sometimes I think my license should be revoked.

I've mentioned this to friends who don't seem to relate. "But you can access all of Calvin's commentaries, all of Spurgeon's sermons! It's like having the Library of Congress in your office!" Yes, and that seems to be the problem. I used to be overwhelmed by the vastness of all I didn't know in the print edition of The New York Times Book Review—why turn me loose in the Library of Congress?