Is nonlinear reading making us stupid - or smarter?
Posted by Moezilla at 03:57, 30 Jul 2010A psychologist confronts the argument that internet-based "nonlinear" reading is "changing our brain and moving us away from deep thought into more shallow thinking."
On the bright side: "The difference here is that people will be able to read what other people think about the book as they read. They can even discuss the book live while they are reading it, not when they have read the final page..."
And David Weinberger is even more optomistic. "Perhaps the web isn’t shortening our attention span. Perhaps the world is just getting more interesting..."
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28 June 2006
2 days 10 hours
Moezilla,
I think that it depends on what you are reading.
What do you think?
cnnek
{You Can Teach People How To Think Critically Or What To Think; But, You Can't Do Both! It Is Better To Teach People How To Think Critically!!!}
1 May 2004
13 hours 43 min
I don't know about books, never read any such yet but one thing I know, non-linear computer games (most often RPG-related) are a lot more fun to play than linear games like first shooter games. Probably not all games are good, I've not played that many but that kind of games are more fun to play. I love all the side-stories. Those maps are also a lot more freer to explore than linear first shooter games.
One of my favourite games is Bloodlines, one of White Wolf's VtM-games. It's full of side-quests, both shorter and longer, some better, some not so but no one of the suck though. There is lots of black humor in it too and references to other popular culture, especially horror related such. Like in the Hollywood section of the game, there's a cemetary. The cemetary has a night guard who's job is to see that the dead stay where they are. His name is Romero!
If you play it for the first time I suggest you play a Malkavian because they have the funniest dialogue scenes. Being as they are they also get away with a lot less a**licking. I also recommend you go through the training sequence with Jack at the beginning of the game. I know it gets tedious when you re-play the game but nontheless I suggest to go through it for one reason only. You get your lock picker for free and that is good cause your avatar won't have a lot of money at that point in the game. And you gonna need the lock picker real bad. The first Haven in Santa Monica is a real dump lol but then on the other hand, the next you get when you reach Downtown is a lot better, unless you chose to play Nosferatu because that Haven is also a dump. But what can you expect down in the sewers? If you chosed to play Tremere you also get a special Haven, an apartment in the house of the leader of that clan. Else you get a nice two floor apartment with a big flat screen tv and a large aquarium built into the wall! You don't get the keys right away. You have to do a few quests for the Prince first.
I'm gonna end with a last tip. When you explore the hospital in Santa Monica you will soon encounter one room with a wounded young woman. It's your choice if you want to help her or not. If you give her some blood she will heal fast, just like in True Blood but that will also get her curious and she will ask what you did to her. Whatever you do, don't tell her you're a vamp because that will freak her out and soon there will guards shooting at you. I made that mistake the first time and it annoyed the crap out of me lol.
9 May 2010
48 weeks 1 day
I would also add the way internet writers and journalists have been evolving...Headlines, content, subject, methodology, etc. In my eyes they are getting better at sucking people into worthless space fillers and little explanations. I'm a regular Huffington Post visitor and just yesterday the top headline read "4 More Years" with a picture of Obama looking presidential as usual. What was the article about you ask? A liberal website pushing Obama for reelection? Nope...just more stuff on the Afghan war. Misleading much? Also, am I the only one bugged by the articles about nuclear physics, specifically about the Higgs Boson, where they somehow deem it necessary to explain what a proton is but not what a GeV is. Seriously WTF!
"We're all puppets, Jesus. I'm just the one that sees the strings, the stage, the puppetmaster, and the audience." Exerpt from a dialog Jesus and I had in your kitchen a week ago • • •*• •°•
22 November 2004
2 weeks 14 hours
where they somehow deem it necessary to explain what a proton is but not what a GeV is.
That's because they are journalists. The vast majority have studied how to write, targeted at a particular audience. They don't usually understand what they are writing about, or at least not beyond their target audience.
I don't know what the current standard is. Some years ago most newspapers were written for an audience with a grade 8 education. Probably because that's what most of the public remembered from their school days. After that they discovered the opposite sex, and that was the end of it as far as learning goes.
It seems the journalism trade largely assumes that it is enough to be ahead by about one grade level, in order to teach the public enough for the momement they spend on the news.
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We are the cat.
9 May 2010
48 weeks 1 day
Your right, another aspect is the journalists inability or lack thereof to research what they are writing. Also, it seems that the internet journalism deals heavily in re-posting news via rewriting the information in layman terms or outright plagiarism with the writers opinionated views sprinkled on top.
Off-topic real quick. Is it internet media mimicking the televised media or the internet media mimicking the televised media? Cause they both seem to be one in the same now, just read instead of spoken. Although televised media in my opinion is FUBAR at the moment but the underlying opinionated principles are still there.
"We're all puppets, Jesus. I'm just the one that sees the strings, the stage, the puppetmaster, and the audience." Exerpt from a dialog Jesus and I had in your kitchen a week ago • • •*• •°•