I know we had a thread related to this a while back. I really think that information overload and the degrading ability to focus are and will be increasingly huge factors in the state of humanity. Everything about our society is becoming more and more temporary and superficial. Genuine understanding doesn't come from reading 10 blogs a day and following thousands of people's tweets. I think the constant updating, email checking, page refreshing, multitasking, media consumption are false substitutes for meaningful interactions, contemplation, and connections. The most affluent demographics and their children especially are losing the ability to see clearly in favor of a constant stream of distraction. It's like 95% of our cultural production is created to overpower any cognitive dissonance we might have from experiencing reality. We truly are creating a technological prison for our minds because being free and facing reality are too hard.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/education/20wire...
The average young American now spends practically every waking minute — except for the time in school — using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“At night, I can text or watch something on YouTube until I fall asleep,†Francisco Sepulveda, 14, said of his smart phone.
Those ages 8 to 18 spend more than seven and a half hours a day with such devices, compared with less than six and a half hours five years ago, when the study was last conducted. And that does not count the hour and a half that youths spend texting, or the half-hour they talk on their cellphones.
And because so many of them are multitasking — say, surfing the Internet while listening to music — they pack on average nearly 11 hours of media content into that seven and a half hours.
The study’s findings shocked its authors, who had concluded in 2005 that use could not possibly grow further, and confirmed the fears of many parents whose children are constantly tethered to media devices. It found, moreover, that heavy media use is associated with several negatives, including behavior problems and lower grades.
The third in a series, the study found that young people’s media consumption grew far more in the last five years than from 1999 to 2004, as sophisticated mobile technology like iPods and smart phones brought media access into teenagers’ pockets and beds.