There has been much talk in recent years of the effect the Internet has on our brains. There is more information free for the taking than ever before, by incredibly huge margins, but many argue there is a dark flipside to this mass of easily accessible information. The Internet promotes surfing, multitasking and skimming. It isn’t important to have facts locked in your brain, it’s important to know what path you need to take to gain access to those facts. As a result, our ability to focus is diminishing and less information is stored in our long-term memory banks.
New York Times technology scribe Nicholas Carr’s recent book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains has stoked the fires of this debate. I haven’t read the book, but evidently there is some strong scientific evidence that using the Internet is having significant effects on the way our brains work, some of it very negative.
The Internet is a venue that allows all kinds of crazy content to flourish and thrive that never would in other mediums, and allows an incredible flow of ideas, but I think it’s true, much of this content lacks depth. I read many blogs per day, (I even write them!) and for better or worse, brevity is a part of the culture. There’s so much information out there, you can’t expect your readers to hunker down and wade through 2,000 words before you hit your main point. When writing for the Internet, it’s important to be quick and direct. It’s a platform where innovative, original thoughts can ricochet around incredibly quickly, but also a place where the details tend to get swept to the side.
While great writing for the Internet cuts to the chase, sometimes at the expense of details, I think the lack of focus people bring to any one blog post or website gives content creators a dangerous license to include fluff. People aren’t reading with much depth, so it’s possible and all too common for content on the Internet to skate by rehashing other people’s ideas or relying on generalizations, especially since there there’s virtually no cost to publishing. I urge you to take a hard look at whatever you’re writing, be it a blog post, landing page of a website or email newsletter and ask yourself, is this sentence really necessary? Great writing in every medium should usually be concise, but it’s especially important in the vast expanse that is the Internet.
As for the effects that our world of bite-sized bits of information is having on us, I’m not sure what the solution is. However, I suspect carving out an hour ever once in a while to turn off your smartphone, shut off the laptop and really dig into one subject for an extended period of time is a good plan.
E: 
