On the Edge web site,
Steven Pinker offers a scientific dissection of “writing in the 21st
century.” Toward the end of his analysis, he slips in the following obligatory
warning:
“Another
intellectual error we must be suspicious of is the ever-present tendency to
demonize the younger generation and the direction in which culture and society
are going. In every era there are commentators who say that the kids today are
dumbing down the culture and taking human values with them. Today the
accusations are often directed at anything having to do with the Web and other
electronic technologies—as if the difference between being printed on dead
trees and displayed as pixels on a screen is going to determine the content of
ideas. We're always being told that young people suck: that they are illiterate
and unreflective and un-thoughtful, all of which ignores the fact that every
generation had that said about them by the older generation. Yet somehow
civilization persists.”
As I have noted earlier, someone could have made the
same observation in Rome circa 400 A.D., and smirked at the Cassandra’s who
fail to see the obvious truth. But the paper-vs.-pixels debate is worth
revisiting, too.
There is, incidentally, some research indicating that
we tend to have a stronger emotional reaction to the “real thing.”
Neuroscientists have also observed that “meaning” is largely a matter of
affective and visceral response, as opposed to the algorithmic analysis of
information/ideas. If we put these two observations together, we could reach a
different conclusion: perhaps a text read off a physical page would, indeed,
have a slightly different meaning as compared to the screen-mediated version –
particularly if processing the latter is interrupted by scrolling, the need to
pay attention to moving images or hyperlinks, alerts, etc. Of course, this
would apply on average – so someone as bent on cool analysis as Pinker could
perhaps be excluded. He could also be excused for finding no difference between
experiences which for some people are worlds apart, and for having so much difficulty
worrying about the future – after all, we all tend to extrapolate from our own
neurosomatic tendencies which we take as the human norm.
