A place for the editors to unload
Not to sound like a Luddite, but sometimes I think my unrestricted access to technology and the Internet has dulled my intellect. I’m far from the first person to have this thought or to write about it but it’s my turn to expel my thoughts to the world so that’s what I’m going to do.
When I compare my brain now to a younger version I realize that I used to be more inquisitive, more creative and somehow had a better attention span. I used to spend hours on end reading- it was how I spent the vast majority of my spare time. I completely abandoned my last book and haven’t touched it in what might be weeks. I used to draw as a hobby, too, and my saxophone doesn’t see nearly as much play as it should. So what happened?
Obviously getting a phone isn’t the only thing that’s changed since my childhood. I’m older, I live in a different environment and I know different people. I have reasons to think that technology is the culprit, though, the foremost of those being that I almost instinctively reach for my phone to entertain myself during a brief lull.
Consuming many bits of information in rapid succession is much more stimulating to the brain than reading something long, and my brain may have become addicted to it in a sense. I would like to do something about this rather than resignedly accepting it but I’m not sure what. I’d like to return to a different state of mind rather than putting a Band-aid on the problem.
My first course of action will likely be to search for data on the Internet. It’s not good for nothing, after all.
