I hit tonight’s author event: Susan Jacoby on her book The Age of American Unreason. Jacoby isn’t optimistic about stemming the rising tide of anti-intellectualism and anti-reason. Frankly neither am I. Find out what she’s thinking on NPR’s Book Tour or by reading an excerpt from her web site.
I’ve attended a half-dozen events including Bruce Campbell on his book Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way. Some are free, and you should plan on some extra time to explore the Central Branch if you’ve never been there before. It’s a grand old building as well as a valuable resource–even in the age of Google and Wikipedia. There’s also a bunch of restaurants in the area as well as a Whole Foods across the street. Hmm, I should have taken the Touch to check for free wiki … putting it on the list for next time.
Hmmm…her book’s on my Amazon wishlist already!
So, she’s a bit harsh on the negative impact of the Internet and TV.
Any thoughts?
I agree with her in that too often people ONLY watch TV or read [bad] Internet sites without supplementing it with more reliably written and researched and produced alternatives.
I am a proponent of media variety and instruction in cultural literacy for all of them.
I can’t refute her position on Internet and TV; I’d like to, but I can’t, and I suspect there’s some truth to it. I always cringe a little when the TWiT guys talk about getting to “read more” by downloading audible audio files. It’s not reading, and it’s not requiring all that cognitive load for symbolic processing. Ask me again after we’ve both read the book. It’s about 113 on my reading list which got so long because of all the TiVo and podcasts and RSS feeds. Hmm…