Two must reads

If you have not read Neil Postman's classic, Amusing Ourselves to Death, then resolve to do so.  I've read it three times. A related book is Mary Ann Wolfe's Reader, Come Home.

It is no longer really debatable that our devices, the Internet, and digital reading has transformed/is transforming/will soon transform our brains. The question is what to do about it.

Accept it, since all technologies change our brains to some extent? Writing certainly did, as Plato warned his contemporaries. Print surely did (another must read being Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy). TV did, as Postman prophesies (not so much in the futuristic prediction sense as the warning, preaching sense). And now our total dependence (she says as she types on her laptop for her blog) digitization of information and communication.

Second, resist it by divorcing oneself as much as possible from their use. Possible for some, but not many. We do not really need social media, now, do we?

Third, control it by awareness and limiting daily use.

Fourth, fight it by joining the call to warn others in a vehement fashion.

I refuse to accept it, yet I'm not sure where I am in the middle of the other three options. Some days I manage to control, some to resist, and some days, I feel like fighting! 

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