On Saturday I had a look at Roberta Gogos’s Grapevine daily paper.li paper and I saw an interesting article about the new Twitter baby Vine. I clicked to read the article but half way through I thought: “Oh lets see what else is there!”Well, I never have been one to read newspapers and if I had I would only read those articles I was really interested in. But lately I have realised that it happens quite often that I stop reading things half way through or I skip parts of books. It might be of course that I have become more particular with what I am reading as I became older but it seems to me that this is not the reason.
Living in a time of information overload and loving twitter which restricts your communication to 140 signs I started wondering if our reading habits change. Maybe our subconscious thinks “there is so much to learn I do not have time to read something so long!”
This thought gives me a uncomfortable feeling. It seems to me that everything becomes more superficial and we will not be able to go into the deep with subjects we are interested in. What kind of impact will this have on our relationships with each other and our ability to relax? To relax you have to slow down, shut of distracting thoughts and a distracting surrounding. With more and more to see, hear and learn this seems to become difficult to me.
I suspect I have to wait and see what time brings and maybe watch myself and the people surrounding me to find out the answers to those questions. Or what do you think?
Information Overload (Photo credit: DeaPeaJay)
(Links in diesem Beitrag sind in englischer Sprache)
Am Samstag hatte ich einen Blick in Roberta Gogos’s Grapevine daily paper.li Zeitung geworfen und sah einen interessanten Artikel ueber das neue Twitter Baby Vine. Ich klickte auf den Artikel, um ihn zu lesen aber nach der Haelfte dachte ich: “Mal sehen, was da sonst noch so ist!”
Nun war ich noch nie eine grosse Zeitungsleserin und wenn ich mal eine las, dann nur die Artikel, die mich wirklich interessierten. Aber in letzter Zeit bemerkte ich ziemlich haeufig, dass ich Dinge nur zur Haelfte lese oder Teile von Buechern einfach ueberspringe. Natuerlich kann es sein, dass ich im Alter einfach waehlerischer geworden bin, in dem, was ich lese aber ich denke, da mag es einen anderen Grund geben.
In einer Zeit, in der es so viel Information zu konsumieren gibt und da ich Twitter, das unsere Kommunikation auf 140 Zeichen reduziert, liebe wundere ich, ob das unsere Lesegewohnheiten aendert. Vielleicht denkt unser Unterbewusstsein “Da gibt es noch so viel mehr herauszufinden, ich habe keine Zeit so was langes zu lesen!”
Dieser Gedanke behagt mir gar nicht. Es scheint mir so, dass alles immer oberflaechlicher wird und wir bald nicht mehr faehig sein werden Dinge, die uns interessieren wirklich in aller Tiefe zu ergruenden. Was fuer einen Einfluss wird das auf unsere Beziehungen haben und unsere Faehigkeit zu relaxen? Um zu relaxen muss man es ein wenig langsamer angehen und alle stoerenden Ausseneinfluesse abschalten. Mit immer mehr, das wir sehen und hoeren koennen scheint mir das immer schwieriger zu werden.
Ich fuerchte jedoch, dass ich es einfach abwarten muss, was die Zeit so bringt und vielleicht auch einfach mich selber und die Menschen in meiner Umgebung beobachten, um die Antwort auf diese Fragen zu finden. Oder was denkt Ihr?
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Well, I think thats really interesting and probably quite true! I cant seem to read like I used to and reading what you said makes sense for me. I read emails and all sorts of other information – as you say “overload” and most of its crap anyway. I am going to change back to reading more better things and be more particular with that. Thankx!! for that. Cooee
oh it did not post my answer ~ how odd.
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. I think it is a question of taking priorities and we have to organise our life more. Which is not exactly my thing but well….. I try to concentrate more on the reading side as well so please keep me updated with your progress
Great post and very timely question!! I thought it was just me.
I have lately had a difficult time concentrating on books (gasp!) and focusing on projects.
I have read that as writers who wish to some day publish, we should become established on multiple social media outlets, but I find that blogging and taking the occasional scroll throu Facebook is all I can handle. I am on twitter, but as you know, I have yet to figure out how to really use it, and Pinterest, while intriguing, seems like a lot of work that ai don’t have time for… Don’t even mention LinkedIn, good reads, reddit, stumbled in, or any of the others!
I think that with all the technology available today, we are a lot more distracted in general and unfortunately ai think it is the younger generation who have only known this way of life who will suffer the most from it.
Well I fear you are right. That is why I try to get the kids of the pc now and then and play with them. Experience showed me that it is very important to give them some attention and they really enjoy a good old-fashioned game very much.
As to all the platforms availlable: Chose the ones that attract you the most and stick to them. For me it is mainly Twitter and the blogging. I have discovered tumblr just a few weeks ago and like it very much but have just a short scim through every other day. Pinterest is only a lot of work in the beginning when you have to set up your boards. Later on it is enough to pin a few pins every week or at least that is how I deal with it. Facebook I have given up as it really takes just too much time. On Twitter I concentrate on my connect tab so I only answer those tweets that mention me or retweets, favourites ect of my tweets. That works well and keeps the information down. Now and then I have a look into my timeline and retweet other peoples tweets if they are interesting. But as I am down to 30 hours work per week and we do not have the children around every day it is much easier for me.
I think with both reading and the Internet we just have to learn to set priorities and stick to them.
Reblogged this on Zara ~ a writing story and commented:
Sorry forgot yesterdays poetry update but todays bi-lingual is coming now: