I can't concentrate!

Over the past year, I have become increasingly concerned about my attention-span. I still consider myself a good listener, and I can still focus on a specific project for hours on end when necessary. But I have noticed a significant decline in the amount of reading that I do. It’s not because I’m uninterested, it’s because I can’t concentrate for longer than a few pages. This was not my reality as an undergraduate at Oregon State. I read like a mad-woman for school and pleasure. Today, however, it takes a really gripping book to keep my mind from wondering.

I am not sure why the change, but I like to attribute it to my increased use of the internet, as opposed to decreasing intelligence. The only thing I really used my computer for during my undergraduate years was word processing, email, and maybe a little research. I never shopped online, I never read news online, and I certainly never watched TV online. Today, all of those things are a part of my everyday life.

I am not all together pleased by this new reality. I like the direct access to information and entertainment, but I miss the days when this wasn’t a constant distraction. And it makes me wonder: If I am so affected by the internet after only a handful of years of regular use, what does the generation that is growing up with this new technology face? With all the benefits of the internet, it raises a serious concern over the sustained concentration abilities of the younger generation.

There is another way to look at this issue, however. The internet is still somewhat new to me. I never used it in high school, and my use in college was limited. I grew up with restricted TV time and a library of books in my bedroom. Could it be that my brain is simply over-stimulated by this new medium? Could it be that my four-year-old nephew, who has his own laptop and launched a discussion about On-Demand TV at dinner tonight, will be “wired” a little bit differently than me by the time he is my age?

The thought of reading a book online doesn’t really bother me. But the thought of having internet access at my fingertips while reading that book makes me sure that I would never read a whole book again. The book would bring up a question in my mind and I would leave the text, only to become lost in a maze of internet searches. Or, heaven forbid, what if the text actually had links embedded in it, where you could click to find further information on the subject? I would never read anything longer than a paragraph again.

Granted, having the internet available while reading might allow me to access more information and learn more about a subject than was ever possible before, but what about the depth of that subject? What about the satisfaction of becoming buried in a text and, when finished with it, placing the book on the shelf like a trophy, with a little sigh of satisfaction at your own accomplishment. No matter how our brains are “wired,” I think living in brief snippets instead of continuous text would be a loss for us all.