I was reading a series discussing the effects of the internet on the way we read and think.  (Here’s a good place to start if you’re interested.)

I found it interesting for several reasons, primarily because I’ve noticed the profound effect my writing tool has on my own work.  I’ve been paying more attention to my workflow since I’m writing so much more, I guess that’s part of the point of doing a PhD.  Anyway, I’ve noticed how the computer screen is a helpful tool for trying out different arrangements i.e. outlining a chapter or section.  It’s so much easier to grab bits and cut and paste them in different orders.  However, when I’ve been drafting sections, when I come to a complicated collection of paragraphs I have to grab a pencil and notepad to work out the flow.  Cutting and pasting — even deleting and retyping seems to produce a huge jumble.  I’ve also noticed how much easier it is to just write in plain text rather than on a word processor.  It is so distracting to have things `auto-formatted’ or `corrected’ and have to fiddle with getting them back to the way you want them.  Maybe I’m just easily distracted, but I was using one program that didn’t keep the fonts consistent when I pasted quotes from my notes and the differences in fonts made it unusable for me.

I also believe that those who worry about the effects of the internet on the way we think are absolutely correct.  The effects of the format information is presented has had a profound impact on the way people process information and communicate with one another throughout history.  Oral civilizations remembered lenghty epics because the story was presented in memorable poetry.  As societies came to rely more on writing, the form of narratives changed.  One of the best examples of the impact of technology on thought in my own line of work is the sermon.  If you were to compare a sermon from the 17th Century Puritans to any sermon preached in the past few decades they would be hardly recognizable as the same genre.  Ignoring what doctrine would be tought older sermons would be much longer and exponentially more complex.  I would guess the average sermon today would be between fifteen and twenty-five minutes long, maybe a little longer in more conservative denominations, but certainly under and hour.  However, even these longer sermons, at least the ones that I have listened to, follow a rather simplistic progression of thought and often contain multiple illustrations of a single point and a good deal of repetition.  Older sermons would make several points with several sub-points that would require attention and memory.  I know the Puritan sermons are not exemplary of all earlier times — they were in fact the product of literacy, that is people whose thinking was formed by reading the printed word.  The same sort of thing could be seen in political debates.  I find it pretty frightening to watch our televised `town hall meetings’ with presidential candidates when I consider that our political constitution was designed for the self governance of people who could follow the the types of arguments presented in the Lincoln-Douglas debates.