Is The Internet Melting Our Brains?

[From an interview on salon.com]

Sept. 19, 2009 By now the arguments are familiar: Facebook is ruining our social relationships; Google is making us dumber; texting is destroying the English language as we know it. We're facing a crisis, one that could very well corrode the way humans have communicated since we first evolved from apes. What we need, so say these proud Luddites, is to turn our backs on technology and embrace not the keyboard, but the pencil.

Such sentiments, in the opinion of Dennis Baron, are nostalgic, uninformed hogwash. A professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Baron seeks to provide the historical context that is often missing from debates about the way technology is transforming our lives in his new book, "A Better Pencil." His thesis is clear: Every communication advancement throughout human history, from the pencil to the typewriter to writing itself, has been met with fear, skepticism and a longing for the medium that's been displaced. Far from heralding in a "2001: Space Odyssey" dystopia, Baron believes that social networking sites, blogs and the Internet are actually making us better writers and improving our ability to reach out to our fellow man. "A Better Pencil" is both a defense of the digital revolution and a keen examination of how technology both improves and complicates our lives.

Recently, Salon spoke with Baron by phone about emoticons, the way Facebook and MySpace make us better friends and a not-too-distant future when everyone is a writer.

---"Is the Internet melting our brains?" a review and Q&A with Dennis Baron, English professor and author of A Better Pencil, on Salon.com.

That's right, relax those sphincters and embrace the ever-accelerating pace of change in concepts of communications and community. But, you might well ask, why should I feel good about these continual, persistent disruptions and changes in information flows and relationships in my life? Others did not in earlier generations of change, right? They often objected to it and rejected it, too. Some even lived without it just fine, thank you very much.

Well, one reason might be that it continues to evolve so fast, changing everything--communications, relationships, community--with such exacting technological dictates. You're either on-board or excluded. And no, says the author, it's not going to be the downfall of the English language and all that is good. As is always the case, it's just going to be different--and likely better. How could that be? Click on the link below and enjoy the interesting Q&A with Mr. Baron.

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2009/09/19/better_pencil/index.html