If you’re an older person, you may understand the terms deep reading and bookworm are virtually synonymous, if you’ve run across the former term at all. You may have been a bookworm, as was I, in your youth, or caught the reading bug in early adulthood, perhaps as part of the time when your brain finished its growth spurt or neuron purge, known to occur in the mid- to late-20s.
Or perhaps you’ve never really been a deep reader, but just skim along so you can say you’re part of the Internet.
If you’re a younger reader, and you’ve actually read this far, this may all sound mysterious, fantastical, even the musings of aliens.
To all of you, young and old, I encourage you to watch this video by Cinzia DuBois, a literature scholar and lover, where she discusses the loss of her ability to concentrate, to deep read, and assigns some blame.
No, go back and watch the video. I nodded along, recognizing symptoms, and maybe you will, too.
If you’ve taken my advice, you may now understand the remark about younger readers being amazed at such thoughts. DuBois’ commentary helped clarify my own thoughts on the matter, and I do have to wonder, after 40+ years of social media, just the measure of wreckage my brain has sustained Just By Trying To Keep Up.
Sound familiar? Do you try to keep up with the fire hose that’s the Internet? Just out of curiosity, is it purely, ah, curiosity that drives you, or is their a social status element involved?
Pick me! Pick me!
My useless contribution is that, of late, I’ve been trying to write fiction, and finding the concentration and drive to do so has been difficult. It’s so much easier to ‘catch up on my reading,’ and I’m not talking about the 20-30 books sitting unread, or in progress, on my bookshelves, such as Great Expectations (Dickens), which I’ve been working on for close to a year. The magazines, as they’re cute when they beg, do get some attention. But, no, it’s really the latest political post, whether it be Benen, Erickson, or Sullivan, which, in the end, are depressing illustrations of mendacity in action, whether it’s the writer or their subject.
So I’m giving some thought to dropping out and turning the Internet into a utility, by which I mean using it for working from home, checking email, and otherwise ignoring it. Oh, yes, and blowing off steam on the blog. Forty years of social media does breed some irreversible habits, doesn’t it?
Call it claiming your life back.
How about my readers? Any urges to just say Screw it and go back to real life? Tell me about it.
