More On The Shallows

In today's New York Times I have an essay responding to Nicholas Carr's new book, The Shallows. While I disagree with the overarching conclusions of Nick's book, it's a great read and wonderfully written, with many fascinating detours through the history of media and technology.  I encourage everyone to pick it up.

I wanted to post a few additional comments on the Times piece. The crux of my disagreement with Nick is spelled out in this section of the essay:

The problem with Mr. Carr’s model is its unquestioned reverence for the slow contemplation of deep reading. For society to advance as it has since Gutenberg, he argues, we need the quiet, solitary space of the book. Yet many great ideas that have advanced culture over the past centuries have emerged from a more connective space, in the collision of different worldviews and sensibilities, different metaphors and fields of expertise. (Gutenberg himself borrowed his printing press from the screw presses of Rhineland vintners, as Mr. Carr notes.)

It’s no accident that most of the great scientific and technological innovation over the past millennium has taken place in crowded, distracting urban centers. The printed page itself encouraged those manifold connections, by allowing ideas to be stored and shared and circulated more efficiently. One can make the case that the Enlightenment depended more on the exchange of ideas than it did on solitary, deep-focus reading.

Another way of phrasing this point is this: was the intellectual revolution post-Gutenberg driven by the mental experience of long-form reading? Or was it driven by the ability to share information asynchronously, and transmit that information easily around the globe? I think it is a mix of the two, but Nick, taking his cues from McLuhan, places almost all of his emphasis on the cognitive effects of deep focus reading. There's no real way to prove it, but I think there's a very strong case to be made that the information storage-and-retrieval advances made possible by the book were more important to the Enlightenment and the modern age than the contemplative mode of the literary mind. And if that's true, then the Web should be seen as a continuation of the Gutenberg galaxy, not a betrayal of it. (This notion of good ideas as networks is one of the central themes of my new book, Where Good Ideas Come From, which comes out in the fall.)

The other point to make here is a slightly meta-one: this specific response to Nick's book didn't fully crystallize in my head until I'd written most of the essay (and well after I'd read the book.) Most of us will recognize the phenomena: actually sitting down to write out a response to something makes you see it in a new way, often with greater complexity. And that of course is the crucial flipside to the decline of long-form reading in the digital age: the increase in short-form writing. If we are slightly less able to focus because of the distractions of electric text, I suspect it is more than made up for by the fact that we are much more likely to write out our responses to what we do read. (And this it turn connects to Clay Shirky's argument in Cognitive Surplus, which is a subject for another post, since I am only halfway through it…)

Comments

[Quentin Hardy]

It seems to me that the intellectual revolution post-Gutenberg was driven as much by the transformation of learning into a more portable form, not just geographically but linguistically.
The great innovation in the geographic transformation may not have been Gutenberg, but the Venetian printers of the 1490s, who figured out paper folding, and got up to 8x as much copy onto a single page of a much smaller volume. This created a book that could be transported in saddlebags, quickening the rise of the traveling scholar, the tutor for hire. Learning was thus far more portable than when it centered in early universities and monasteries.
Portability of language was perhaps even more important. Mass production quickly filled the market for books in classical languages, and (with a much lower cost of books) grew the market in translation. The fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the consequent movement of hitherto unknown classical texts into Europe, also played a role here. In any case, the explosion of vernacular writing -- a delineated market for ordinary languages -- had much to do with both the advent of The Reformation (Martin Luther was the first best-selling author) and Nationalism.
Benedict Anderson's indispensable "Imagined Communities" is the best source on this aspect of nationalism.
It's worth noting that print was not initially viewed as a source of long-form immersion. Socrates suspected the Stoics, in part, because they did not rely on speech and memory. On the eve of Gutenberg, the ability to memorize things was considered a form of honoring God's creation, and "The Art of Memory" was deeply studied. Books wiped that out, fast as you could say "there goes the neighborhood."

[Quentin Hardy]

Portability made possible thinking that was long form, but also better capable of being disturbed by novel sources.

[CT Moore]

I think why people feel that the web is a betrayal of the Gutenberg galaxy is because of "usability". Many of the rules of usability dictate that content should be bite-sized and scanable.

And I think the problem with that is that really great (i.e. earth shattering) ideas often don't lend themselves to bite sized snippets. Rather, the require background and context to help the audience understand WHY they are earth shattering.

So while the web may be ideal for the "converted/choir" to further explore and discuss such ideas, it may be limited in terms of communicating and spreading them.

[Cary G. Osborne]

Notations by readers in books, such as those described by Steven Johnson in this blog, are not as new as he seems to think. For centuries, marginalia, as it is called, has been practiced by readers and writers. In the old days, people wrote their thoughts on what the author said in the margins of the books, then those books were often passed around for others to read, with more thoughts being added in some cases. The process then wasn't as fast as it is now on the Kindle, but they were not "popular highlights," the thought of which is somewhat revolting.

[Elin Whitney-Smith]

“…was the intellectual revolution post-Gutenberg driven by the mental experience of long-form reading? Or was it driven by the ability to share information asynchronously, and transmit that information easily around the globe?"

And, I would add, for ordinary, craftspeople, to gain access to books, reading and importantly book-keeping. These people, in the Protestant countries, were able to use these new skills to change the way they produced goods. To invent the putting out system that is the forerunner of capitalist production.

If slow reading was all that was necessary capitalism would have been invented by the upper class Spanish who had capital, access to science, and a diverse cultural tradition.

But the inquisition restricted what books could be printed. Printers moved to the Protestant countries; the Spanish Netherlands, and England. This made these countries print intensive and comparatively, to use Kevin Kelly’s phrase, made information, ‘fast, cheap and out of control’.

Printers in Holland produced, pornography, ballads, broadsides, playing cards, children’s books, business books and “how to” books. Holland became print intensive in the same way as the United States is TV intensive.

Literacy which had been limited to the upper classes became the definition of adulthood. Where more common people read there was more innovation and therefore more growth of all kinds.

But it wasn’t all beer and skittles. Print disadvantaged women. Girls were not taught to read because they married out of the family. Boys were taught to read because they were to take over the family business. So, men who previously only produced product while their wives ran the business end of a shop (buying selling and supervising apprentices), could now read, write, and do sums, and so could hire others.

Business moved out of the common room and then out of the house entirely. Women who had produced everything from beer, to barrels, to shoes, and cloth now only produced children.

These social, educational, and economic changes are what shaped people’s perception of their world and even of their definition of who they were as men and women more than slow reading.

This is from my upcoming book, “Information Revolutions: Hunter/Gatherers to Internet 2.0” being previewed at http://whitney-smith.net

[Elin Whitney-Smith]

Alex Wright, in his book "Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages" notes that during the Dark Ages the book was invented and that it allowed random access to information whereas scrolls made people read linearly.

I can hear people complaining that because of random access people will not be able to think coherently.

[اعلانات مبوبه]

Notations by readers in books, such as those described by Steven Johnson in this blog, are not as new as he seems to think. For centuries, marginalia, as it is called, has been practiced by readers and writers. In the old days, people wrote their thoughts on what the author said in the margins of the books, then those books were often passed around for others to read, with more thoughts being added in some cases. The process then wasn't as fast as it is now on the Kindle, but they were not "popular highlights," the thought of which is somewhat revolting.

[glory]

here's clay shirky -- http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jul/05/clay-shirky-internet-television-newspapers -- on how technology unblocks motivation: "Techies were making the syllogism, if you put new technology into an existing situation, and new behaviour happens, then that technology caused the behaviour. But I'm saying if the new technology creates a new behaviour, it's because it was allowing motivations that were previously locked out. These tools we now have allow for new behaviours - but they don't cause them." via http://mike.teczno.com/snippets.html

[dan bloom]

The pros and cons of reading on screens - Taipei Times - archives
The pros and cons of reading on screens. By Dan Bloom 丹布隆. Friday,
Jul 16, 2010, Page 8. As digital advances continue to transform the global
media world ...

John Miedema » Dan Bloom: Snailpapers and Screening
Dan Bloom, a reporter in Taiwan, read The Art of Slow Reading article in
The ... and makes his case for reading on paper rather than reading on
screens. ...

MY 2-MINUTE READING vs. SCREENING VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xpN78-cJP0

[Jordan 11]

I struggle to reconcile this thesis (and, like Michael Treacy's before it) with the reality of companies like Toyota that have proven their ability to transcend all three domains effectively
Our store offers youall kinds of favourite products like Jordan Retro 1

[ffxiv gil]

The specific response to Nick's book is not entirely in my mind crystal, until I wrote the article and well, I most want to read the book. Most of us will recognize the phenomenon: a real sit down and write a response something you often see a new way is more complicated. This is of course a critical threshold of higher long-term form of reading in the digital age decline: an increase in the short form of writing. If we can focus on slightly less, because of electric version of the distractions, I doubt this is enough to make up for the fact that we are more likely to write out the responses we are looking for more practice. This is open a connection to Clay Shirky's argument that cognitive surplus, which is the subject of another article, because I only half through it ...

[Jordan Hydro]

We do indeed have a no shoes policy.Guests are advised in advance to bring their slippers if they choose.I grew up in Canada where lines of shoes and slippers by the door was the norm.

[sex izle]

Portability made possible thinking that was long form, but also better capable of being disturbed by novel sources.

[ugg nightfall]

You can also insist on writing so good articles in your life for us.and I think you are a free man to do things as your ideals.pursit it.and now pls change our things with my website,link my name to know me.

[Nike Air Max 95]

After reading you blog I learnt a lot.But I do not like that, And reading you blog make me so sad. We will can not reside in the world. Because the temperature become more and more high, But to that time where can we go, So now we must begin to protect the earth.