The argument Nicholas Carr makes on the difference between printed books and their digital counterparts (see Clutter) rests on the idea that "A change in form is always...a change in content."
There is no question that the experience of reading a printed book is significantly different from the experience of reading an ebook, regardless of the device used in the process. But is the experience of reading an ebook or any long-form online content inherently distracting? Or is the problem simply our failure to adapt to the new reading environment?
A reader is under no obligation to click a hypertext link that appears in the middle of a sentence. Nothing prevents a reader who wants to concentrate on an ebook or long online article from shutting down email and messaging applications and taking other measures to create an environment conducive to reading and concentration.
Distraction is distraction, digital or otherwise. So isn't the issue really about getting better at tuning out -- or turning off -- the distractions? Is reading a book on a crowded bus, train, or plane, with the various stimuli and distractions associated with those environments, so much less challenging than reading online?
There is indeed a great deal of information clutter in our lives, and Mr. Carr's concerns certainly have merit. But blaming the inability to concentrate or a deterioration of intellectual or cognitive abilities on the availability of information is like blaming obesity on food. Cheeseburgers and pizza are incapable of forcing themselves down your throat. Information is similarly constrained. The selection of what, when, and how much information we consume is a matter of making healthy choices based on the individual ability to metabolize that information.
Mr. Carr closes his post with the following comment on software writer Tim Bray's plans to digitize all of his books:
When Tim Bray throws out his books, he may well have a neater, less dusty home. But he will not have reduced the clutter in his life, at least not in the life of his mind. He will have simply exchanged the physical clutter of books for the mental clutter of the web. He may discover, when he's carried that last armload of books to the dumpster, that he's emptied more than his walls.
Swapping a collection of books for a digitized, networked library is a matter of storage and interior decoration. And while such decisions can affect one's quality of life, they are a reflection of one's taste, not of one's capacity for critical thinking or intellectual prowess. Mr. Carr appears to assume that Mr. Bray's decision will render him incapable of the levels of concentration and discrimination necessary to take advantage of an all-digital, on-demand library. That's just unfair.
Read: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Clutter
