This post from Steven Johnson, a fine author, includes a link to his article in the NYT today. It's a point I wonder about: what effect does the bombardment of media, now especially web-based media have upon us? I think it's good, but I've spent a good deal of today writing blogs and catching up on blogs, as well as having read the NYT last night. I haven't yet turned to a couple of fine books that I'm reading. Good or bad? I think good, overall. I think that the faster movement of ideas, especially in bite-sized chunks on the web, is constructive with positive intellectual benefits. I do think that longer, considered works are important, perhaps more important than these smaller pieces, but we just have to balance our diet. I worry that there's a lot of books that I'm not reading because I'm spending more time with on-line reading, which I consider more current, more cutting-edge, so I do try to balance the current with the proven. Johnson & Nicholas Carr, whose work he reviews, discuss some important issues very thoughtfully.
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