Leap around like panicky jackrabbits

Posted on by Live & Learn

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Mark Morford nails it again in: The Tragic Death of a Good Read

…You are not alone. Researchers say our brains are getting so heavily iTrained to leap around like panicky jackrabbits, any sentence that dares to contain more than eight words, any paragraph that contains multiple clauses, any long-form work that offers deep background info or long-winded, roundabout verbiage – AKA “literature” – merely leaves you sighing heavily and wishing for Candy Crush Saga

…English profs are reporting that their students are struggling more than ever to make it through the classics, because Henry James and Nathaniel Hawthorne don’t read like Gawker.

…It might be a small problem. It might be just a little indicative of a disturbing shift, a wicked sea change in the way we navigate not just books, not just magazines and media, but love, time, each other, the world.

…Have our insta-everything devices beaten the gracefulness out of our hearts and the patience out of our brains? And also the depth? And the meaning? Maybe.

Don’t miss reading the full post @ The Tragic Death of a Good Read

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43 thoughts on “Leap around like panicky jackrabbits”

  1. Do I hear an Aaaamen!! Sing it – this world is being reduced to soundbites and while I enjoy the use of a pithy phrase and I also a HUGE fan of ‘the sentence’ even, dare I say, ‘the paragraph’!!!

  5. sad, and just ask my kinders who try to sit on our circle rug for more than 5 minutes. research now suggests children are able to sit for approximately 1 minute of time for each year of age.

    i try really hard to help them with this, by showing them ways to be calm, be aware, and just enjoy what is going on in the moment. we practice ‘the quiet game, (sitting still not making noise or moving. kids always ask are we allowed to breathe or blink? yes. ), we also practice animal yoga, and listening to interesting and long chapter books. when it is warm enough we go lie outside in the grass and just look up at the clouds in the sky to see what pictures we can see. they even ask to play the quiet game and get excited to hear what happened next in our story, and that makes me happy. after each session of animal yoga, or laying out on the grass, they are truly calmer and happier with themselves. i know not all people believe children respond to this, but i’ve lived it with them and know it to be true.

    1. Oh, I thank the Cosmos for you! I have a teacher friend who is teaching her BD kids meditation. It’s radical, but she says it helps.

  6. Oh dear, what a worrying thought, having to dump all those wonderful words I’ve acquired over several decades and write a whole novel in Gawkese D: What would the word count be per chapter? The equivalent of one of my paragraph’s now, maybe?

  8. Lori and I were talking about this last week! And though I am guilty of reading on my Kindle, it still love the feeling of a three dimensional book…I read it differently, savor differently..I think that can be generalized to other ways in which we give and receive information – and all of it seems squeezed into a channel of expediency.

  10. New studies show that we have an 8 second attention span. Down from 12 in 2011. It’s going to continue until we have none at all, at least that’s the way it seems. No one can pay attention any longer. Apparently, the brains of kids are actually changing. A new mutant species is developing, right in front of us. One that we won’t recognize, after a few years. Appreciate for beauty and the things we have always loved, don’t seem to matter to the younger generations. They can’t tear they eyes away from the screen in front of them. Homework is turned in electronically. Communication is done electronically…even when they are sitting next to each other. People don’t go out as much as they used to..kids not at all. Soon chips will be put into babies, when they are born, and the computer will just be one more implant.

  12. This makes the word nerd in me very nervous! Honestly, I agree with you, the author and of course the other comments here – but we are all word nerds or we wouldn’t ‘gather’ here. Perhaps it’s on us to carry forward the torch of the long sentence and beautiful paragraphs?

  14. And yet, if it weren’t for the devices, I wouldn’t have discovered you and all the amazing and thought provoking items you share……

  16. I do think attention span is become shorter, but it’s hard to tell if it is harmful or not, or if we are absorbing more useful information because of our abilities to absorb rapidly bite size info. I guess time will reveal a lot!

    I do remember myself finding those classic novels way too long winded, and utterly boring in my teenage years in the 1980’s. It wasn’t because I had a low attention span, but I felt the writers in their writing just went on and on, way too much about one subject. They needed a really good edit – and I still feel the same today!! I’ve discovered many of my friends (now in their 40’s and 50’s) never completed those novels either, they just read enough of them to get through and pass their English Literature exams! Perhaps more young people today are far more willing to be honest and say they’re finding the book difficult to stick with? And also young people today have more to occupy their minds, it’s no surprise they would find those classics taking up too much of their time! 😀

    Language has changed as well, and if you think about it, those writers used to write by hand. No backspace key or delete button. Anything wrong with their manuscript and they would have had to have written it all again – by hand. It’s not surprising that those books are difficult to read!! 😉

  17. I just cleaned out my library the other day and donated four bags of books to Good WIll in hopes that other readers will enjoy the classics (and sometimes nonsense) like I did. But I wonder if some of the classics in the bag — Pride and Prejudice, Showgun, even the paperback trio of Lord of the Rings — will catch the minds and curiosity of today;s busy reader. If it can’t be read in a day or two, one’s attention span will melt ln the dust that puffs from the books.

    I only got rid of books I knew I’d never read again, or never could get through to begin with. But a book is a wonderful thing to share. IF the person has time in their busy life to read, that is…

    1. A book is a wonderful thing to share Claudia. When I receive a book, especially today in an e-world, I find it to be a special gift. Thanks for sharing.

  18. Smiling. Really enjoyed the post and the comments. Though I can’t stand ebooks (for me that isn’t a book AT ALL) yet I truly agree with Carolann.

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