http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://t.co/e75AE1R/learnunlearnrelearn-the-internet-makes-it-hard-to-concentrate-good-distraction-sparks-innovation-amp-creativity-httptcoe75ae1r-x Learn/Unlearn/Relearn. The #internet makes it hard to concentrate. Good. #Distraction sparks innovation & creativity http://t.co/e75AE1R #x ]]> Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:03:29 -0700 http://t.co/e75AE1R/learnunlearnrelearn-the-internet-makes-it-hard-to-concentrate-good-distraction-sparks-innovation-amp-creativity-httptcoe75ae1r-x http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/jul/05/procrastination-al-kennedy When I began writing, distractions were all low-tech. I had to worry about typewriter ribbons and correction fluid, for God's sake. There was no possibility of spending an apparently productive day making backup files, defragmenting already tidy hard drives, emailing, watching grainy online movies of cats falling over, or playing virtual patience. (I once tried a more sophisticated computer game and, after many months, managed to advance my character by one level and put him into a loop of crouching, rocking and saying, "Oh, no.") Nevertheless, I could still burn away whole pre-Amstrad weekends in keeping busy, rather than writing.… ]]> Fri, 08 Jul 2011 01:52:34 -0700 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/jul/05/procrastination-al-kennedy http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-how-to-survive-the-age-of-distraction-2301851.html The book – the physical paper book – is being circled by a shoal of sharks, with sales down 9 per cent this year alone. It's being chewed by the e-book. It's being gored by the death of the bookshop and the library. And most importantly, the mental space it occupied is being eroded by the thousand Weapons of Mass Distraction that surround us all. It's hard to admit, but we all sense it: it is becoming almost physically harder to read books.

In his gorgeous little book The Lost Art of Reading – Why Books Matter… ]]> Sat, 25 Jun 2011 05:21:36 -0700 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-how-to-survive-the-age-of-distraction-2301851.html http://nymag.com/arts/all/aughts/62514/ It seems significant, somehow, that Infinite Jest—the big buzzy signature meganovel of the nineties—was set at the end of the aughts. Most of the book’s action appears to take place in 2009, which means that we’ve all just survived the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment. It also means that David Foster Wallace’s prophetic window has now (at least in the most literal sense) closed forever, in the same way Orwell’s did when we reached the actual 1984. And in fact Infinite Jest’s vision of the future does, these days, look slightly dated. One of the book’s nightmare scenarios is… ]]> Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:21:00 -0700 http://nymag.com/arts/all/aughts/62514/