The challenge for us now is how do you read a daily paper? I was reared on TV soundbites and local weekly papers, and the odd treat of a weekend edition where the magazine was often the first port of call. More recently the BBC website has been my source of news along with quick forays into US news sites and blogger commentaries. As with all these news sources, The Post condenses and edits; molds and direct what I consume. But the benefit and challenge of a broad sheet comes from its ability to have longer and more varied content. It also exposes to me to stories I might not usually seek out or care about.
Nicholas Carr's insightful cover story in The Atlantic "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (July/August 2008) ignited research into what the internet is doing to our brains. Scientists have explored how the internet makes us better decision makers, how it has changed our memories and some suggest it has actually made us stupid and smarter at the same time.
I'm as addicted to the internet as the next girl and I'm adding my own two pennies worth to it's offering plate with this blog. But I think we might be being robbed.
Google's company mission is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". This is really very kind and helpful of them. However, when someone else organizes all the world's information for me they're deciding what and how I should think. And as for the concept of deciding 'usefulness' ... well don't get me started.
When someone else organizes the world's information for me they rob me of serendipity. Remember when you used to go to the library or a bookstore and happen on a book that turned out to be a gem, but you chose it because you liked the cover or it was next to one of your favorite authors? Much harder to do on Amazon. What about when you were writing a paper for school and you headed off down a thrilling rabbit trail of footnotes? A rarer adventure when we only read the ten articles on page one of our Google Scholar search.
When we're bereft of serendipity, we're bound to miss secret doorways that happen to take us into new worlds. We'll miss new friends and loved ones that could change our dreams. We'll have decided (or someone will have decided for us) how the world should be so there'll be no room for hope or the miraculous.
So, I'm off to read today's Washington Post - I'm going to read all the articles, not just the ones that catch my eye; I'm going to read the uncomfortable ones and the boring ones, the gossipy ones and the economic ones. I'm going to be open to a serendipitous moment when a new light comes on and I see the world in a new way.
