Is Twitter making us stupider?

If anything, Twitter will teach an entire generation of people who didn't get in to the whole SMS text messaging beta how to write using various acronyms and other contractions to cram as much info as they can into a tight space...

"Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity."
--Robert A. Heinlein from The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

Thought you were on to something with that attention span degradation concept, Nick, but I got distracted by an urgent Tweet, concerning #Rolling Stones at Foxboro, MA 1989, and, oh well, forgot my point...

Seriously, listened to the Podcast last week and enjoyed the discussion, but it really hit home this AM with the realization that I was enjoying what was likely to one of the last few sessions of coffee and the analog Boston Globe. Somehow I doubt the time and reflection that I willingly apply to that ritual is unlikely to be replaced by brushing up on old hardcover classics (or new ones like "The Big Switch" for that matter); rather, it'll be a hurried browse at Boston.com and then dive into work earlier or some other frenzied, fractured attack on the day.

I'm certainly no neo-luddite with my head in the analog sand, but I can't help feeling like the demise of the great newspapers is something akin to the loss of the buffalo, a passing whose true impact we won't even begin to appreciate until long after they're gone.

Enjoy the blog, stay well. Regards, CR

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