tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4490888218551680190.post3870501609960915114..comments2024-01-30T13:39:46.484+00:00Comments on The Bibliophilic Blogger: Are Computers Bad for You?Nicholas Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189263209323471368noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4490888218551680190.post-72031018027022738232009-03-27T08:39:00.000+00:002009-03-27T08:39:00.000+00:00Interesting article you got here.I have recently r...Interesting article you got here.<BR/><BR/>I have recently read an article about a study conducted about the harmful effects of computers on physical health. It has been proven that harmful electromagnetic signals do affect human mind negatively.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4490888218551680190.post-61307502489723442772008-11-26T18:03:00.000+00:002008-11-26T18:03:00.000+00:00Does yours make noises at you, Nick? I think you s...Does yours make noises at you, Nick? I think you should keep it in a cage with a cloth over the top, the way that people used to quieten parrots. I know you think I'm an old technophobe but I am seriously worried that the thing will change the way we think - and has already changed the way the young think. The trouble is that it is a 'vertical' medium, rather like rock music, in that information is arranged in a series of static blocks with little or no 'horizontal' narrative - in rock you respond to the succession of thudding noises blocks rather than follow a linear thread as you would in listening to, say, Bach or Charlie Parker. The thudding noises on the Internet are the blocks of knowledge we are stimulated to respond to, hopping from one to another, but not following any real narrative. It literally is an assemblage of 'bits'. It does not force student to think, but tends to be used as a reinforcement of what little they already know, because many will immediately reject whatever seems dull or uniformative in a few seconds. I remember reading that Hitler as a young man used to read books in this way, hopping from politics to religion to philosophy in a very superficial manner, never hesitating or reading deeply but searching only for what would confirm his own very limited intellectual and emotional world.<BR/>There is a very interesting chapter in Mann's Oxford Book of Library Research on how computers are 'a wonderful supplement to a real library...but a terrible substitute.' This is because, paradoxically, on the Web knowledge is hidden until and unless you know how to reach it - and the system of keyword searching is extremely limited and inefficient. (I banged on about this in an article in Literary Review in August 2007.)<BR/><BR/>Computers are wonderful, but the ease with which they seem to open up knowledge is illusory. They provide information and very useful they are too. For that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com