Am I Tweeting My Brains to Mush?

This is in response to a post on his blog


“When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning.” It seems to me that the very process of writing your article as well as the posting of comments is a contradiction to this statement. Many times, I have picked up on an idea or point of view that seems to temporarily take control of my mind and the only way I can recover is by giving the material a great deal of thought. In addition, some tweets just make me laugh and there is a place for that, too.

As far as reading goes, as a child I really identified with the Burgess Meredith character in The Twilight Zone. My mother often said that if toilet paper had print, I’d read it. It was a bittersweet moment when, after she passed away that I actually found printed toilet paper. To summarize: I was addicted to reading, cereal boxes, comic books and newspapers. In the summer months, every two weeks I would borrow as many books as I could carry. Dickens, Austen, Hardy, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc.

My two other vices are movies and music. I will give that some thought another day.

A number of years ago, I realized that reading so much really did not make me a better conversationalist, so I started watching popular TV shows. In an attempt to get closer to my kids, I introduced them to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I watched 24, Lost, Smallville, Ugly Betty, 30 Rock. I rented DVDS to catch up on back episodes. I started feeling empty inside.
A few months ago, I received a Kindle. I downloaded the Blackberry app, and among other books, I have the complete works of Shakespeare (which I read as a teen) as well as the works of Victor Hugo (which I must have missed). I can carry the modern equivalent of the ancient Library of Alexandria in my purse. I have been saved by modern technology.