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Now as a writer I am pretty varied in talent and taste. Often after I read an essay or novel by Burke, Johnson, etc, I get a creative impluse which stimulate my thought and excite my desire for the translation of thoughts into verbal and written expressions.
However I frequently read internet forums, and tl.net included, and am tempted every so often to reply to a thread, I find my vocabulary and and thought incapacitated by the very medium. It seems on the internet, the organic qualities of creativeness and sincerity vanish, and are replaced by a mechanical and stylized narrative.
After reading these forums , and other online material (including newspapers) for a time, I find my boredom increases, to the point that I scroll down the page as rapidly as possible and try to get the jist of the message. I take no pleasure in reading, and even on some topics I am interested in, just can't find the interest to reply.
There's nothing that dulls the mind in my experience more than online "communications." In some ways, this is naturally the nature of the internet itself: a vast proliferation of online material of great quantity and low quality. The "inflation" of information decreases its value and consequently, the quality of its expression.
I also feel that in recent times i've read more off of my computer screen than I have actually read from the printed page.
The thought ambushes my mind at the moment I am reading a rather well-written essay by a Philadalphian lady from the early 20th century who writes about the qualities of conversation, and causes me to reflect on the want of elegance, honesty and meaning (and I do believe these three qualities are mutually inclusive) which infiltrate my mind through the screen. I'm the last to give sociological theories much credit, but it seems to be that the longer I read from the internet, the more my capacity for language and consequently, freedom of thought degrade.
Is internet writing a form of mental junk food? Addictive, yet unhealthy. Simone Weil (a defected Marxist) wrote sixty years ago that revolution, not religion was the opium of the masses. What of the "information" revolution which we are all consumed by?
Since it is an ancient sin to delight in extracting personal experiences and enshrine them as universal truths, I am obliged to ask whether people agree or disagree with this assessment.
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MURICA15980 Posts
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On February 22 2005 18:03 Casper... wrote:
fuk my iq just dropped
rofl
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17066 Posts
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and you write like a donkey
english major, right?
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forums gain in immediacy what they give up in content
the tradeoff is well worth it
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/me votes casper for president
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I think it's all dependant on the context of the reading. For example if you made me read a book online or some really long story off my monitor I could do it easily and would enjoy doing it. I think it's partly due to the fact that instead of turning pages I can sit comfortably in my plush leather chair and scroll or just key down.
Nowadays I can't even sit down and read Lord of the Flies in one sitting and no, I don't have ADD/ADHD.
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MURICA15980 Posts
And frankly, I do not think that Internet forums make me dumber. We do have our good posters here, and because we cover so many topics, if you know who knows what they are takling about, you can learn a thing or two about random topics. Besides that, the fact that everybody here is from different parts of the globe, this global community helps with a... wider perspective?
But I can relate to how you feel about "stupid" online communications. I think it is even worse with the kids younger than me who grew up with broadband connections and 2 ghz computers.
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you see, if i were to insult you in days of yore it would have involved anything from staining a page with crushed ants smeared in donkey's blood to using a device known as a "typewriter" to "type" a letter which i would then enclose in an "envelope" and "mail" to the "recipient" of said insult
this way i can shit on you right away
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MURICA15980 Posts
Why do I get the feeling we're proving his point? :D
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and you write like a donkey
english major, right?
No.
forums gain in immediacy what they give up in content
the tradeoff is well worth it
Yes, if your time is so valuable that you can only spare it to debate
such esteemed figures as myself, it is surely too valuable to be squandered on
such trivialities as raising your mind from the shallow pond of vulgarity. You sure
have an enviable sense of economy.
And here I was, thinking that it was impatience and poor attention span, rather
than the value of time which causes so many people to seek a quick fix on the
internet.
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I somewhat agree with Moltke. Some things low quality things will make you dumber, but if you read something that is well written (though it is very rare on the internet), you won't be as affected as much. The tl.net forums have posters that write with good enough English that it won't necessarily make you stupider or dumber, but reading from other places like the Battle.net forum (which has recently become shit with noobs posting threads saying Zerg is too weak) will possibly have some negative effects. I just try not to write like other people who I think have low quality English.
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Braavos36401 Posts
moltke, i really hate your writing style, who the fuck are you trying to impress, nobody's going to jump on your dick for some well thought-out sentence structure
pretentious ass
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On February 22 2005 18:28 Hot_Bid wrote:
moltke, i really hate your writing style, who the fuck are you trying to impress, nobody's going to jump on your dick for some well thought-out sentence structure
pretentious ass
On the other hand, I really admire yours. I am taking notes as we speak.
-When expressing contempt for a person, always insinuate he is a sexual pervert in your metaphors, because, borrowing from the wisdom of Sigmund Freud, every human motive is essentially sexual.
Really impressive that you have subliminally implied that you have an intellectual affinity with fin-de-siecle thinkers. Way to take me down a peg while as you put it, grovelling for other people to jump on your dick because you're a slick intellectual.
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Its been known for a long time by me that the internet makes you dumb as shit.
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no it makes you smrt thru osmodiar
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EPT
