Is The Internet Taking Away Our Creativity? Our Very Ability To Pay Attention?

This could be a costly loss.

There’s a lot being written about the way that our reading is changing due to the shorter-attention-span internet world we live in.  Now Nicholas Carr identifies two specific potential losses that could be costly.

Robert Siegel of NPR’s All Things Considered interviewed Nicholas Carr, the man who wrote the article in the Atlantic, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and the author of the new book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.  (Read and/or listen to the interview here – it also includes a link to the transcript).  Here’s a portion of the interview:

And in fact, if you look at a lot of recent research on multitasking, it shows that in fact, as people optimize their ability to multitask online, they become less creative in their thinking. They become, you know, more likely to simply process information rather than think deeply for themselves about it.
So even if we get better at jumping from bit to bit to bit of information, we’re still losing – in fact, we’ll probably lose even more – that other, contemplative, introspective mode of thought.

The two losses:

1)    The loss of creativity.
2)    The loss of the ability to pay attention, thus the loss of the ability to be contemplative, to be introspective.

I don’t know if Carr is right.  But I know this, from my own experience.  Recently, I was “stranded,” away from my computer, for quite a chunk of time.  I had two books with me – The Big Short, and Imprisoning America.  I needed to prepare synopses for each of these books, The Big Short for a private client, and Imprisoning America for the Urban Engagement Book Club.  I read nearly both books in what was, in essence, one sitting.

It was great.

No distractions, no internet, no e-mail, no phone calls.  Just me, my thoughts, and those books.

I think I got more out of that experience than I have from any reading experience for quite some time.  I thought more deeply about what I was reading – with more introspection.  I “felt” more contemplative (yes, I realize how subjective that sounds).

And I think I grasped the point of each book more clearly than I would have in my usual world of distractions.

So – maybe Carr is onto something.  And maybe the simple lesson is this – do some heavy, extended reading, in a different chair, away from computer/smart phone/any phone.  For a chunk of time.

These words form the 37Signals guys from ReWork, make even more sense to me now:

You should get in the alone zone.  Long stretches of alone time are when you’re most productive.  When you don’t  have to mind-shift between various tasks, you get a boatload done.
During alone time, give up instant messages, phone calls, e-mail, and meetings.  Just shut up and get to work.  You’ll be surprised how much more you get done.