ON "Author Nicholas Carr: The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains"

On "Author Nicholas Carr: The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains" from Wired.com


This was an unbelievably easy read. The title actually turned me off at first. It was so succinct, so straight-to-the-point, so boring. But as I read through the rest of the article, I found myself learning and enjoying at the same time. Something I haven’t done since Art Attack went off air.

The afore mentioned title was actually reflective of the characteristics of the rest of the article. It was straight to the point and understandable with the least amount of effort. The words used were simplified, yet not dumbed down. When there were highly technical terms that were essential to the understanding of the facts in their full magnitude, there was a brief explanation, or a convenient link to Wikipedia, or both. Or, most amusingly, there were very simple, mundane analogies that explained other complicated happenings that we never even knew were going on in our systems.

Sweet irony came to light upon reading the second page of the article. This semester has found me with multiple copies of readings—copies made when I found something interesting for my thesis in articles I had actually already made copies of for a different passage. Sometimes, hasty skimming does make waste.