Comments on: A little plug for “War and Peace”.

By: Maria

Maria — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:13:32 +0000

What Sara said.

But that is just my problem..I tend to be rather addicted to the PC in my life. Too addicted. I can DEFINATELY see a change in my attention span and I DON”T LIKE IT> So I take a self imposed hiatus..or lately a “life imposed” hiatus..and, once the addiction wears off, it feels SO good. Really good. But then I miss people….people like, well, RegularMom so I have to read what she’s up to…then I’ll link to something else, adn then I’ll read another blog and before your know it…well, here I go again…

I mean I SKIMMED this article! No. Not really. Well, maybe a bit…but at any rate, I’m digressing into addiction which is not what the article was about. But reprogramming. And yes, it’s true. And my dd10 is not even slightly interested in a computer. And I”ll keep it that way as long as possible…

By: Katherine

Katherine — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:19:29 +0000

Hey, great minds think a like. Did you see this the nytimes printed today? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/opinion/18wed3.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

: ) K

By: Mom #1

Mom #1 — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:32:46 +0000

Oh, yes, I feel ya.

If there’s a Mom out there who has mastered balance, please email me (in 5 sentences or less) because I’ve got a lot of blogs to hit before I try to grade papers, cook, clean the kitchen, get Baby Boy to martial arts, and then settle down to read one maybe two chapters of my book.

Oy!

By: Sara

Sara — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:01:48 +0000

Everything in moderation, and we’re all good. The novel was hailed as a destructive force, and anyone who’s ever spent a summer reading nothing but trashy harlequin romance novels can attest to the truth behind that fear. Then there was television, and that was justified in a way also. But I like some programs, and I’ve seen animals and places in the world on TV that I would never get to see in real life. So, I like to think we can have our cake and eat it too, if we just stick to a moderate level of use of all these things.

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:46:27 +0000

I think the problem I have with reading articles online is the fact that it’s on the computer. I don’t get on the computer in the evenings, because I’m looking for something non-electronic and quiet to do. I can read my long novels then (though not War and Peace, just not my thing honestly). In the evenings, the kids are in bed and the tv is off and I can just lose myself in a good book. But during the day, there’s noise everywhere, and the kids are saying, “Hey Mama, can we have hot chocolate?” and,”Hey Mama, come see this thing I built in the back yard,” and lots of stuff like that. And I’m lucky if I can get through a whole sentence without being interrupted by something.

Another big problem I see is finding JUST the information you’re looking for, as with Google. You want to know how often snakes shed their skin, so you type, “snakes shed skin how often” in the Google search box, and you do ctrl+F to find the exact word “shed” on the page. The old way had you checking out a book on snakes from the library, where you’d have to read the whole thing to find the information you want, and chances are you’d learn a bunch more stuff than just the one thing you were looking for in the first place. Of course this could have been mentioned in the article, but I haven’t read it yet. Cuz it’s daytime and I’ve already been interrupted four times while typing these two paragraphs.

By: Mommylion

Mommylion — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:41:23 +0000

Very interesting points. I think without a doubt it is changing our brains, but the novel used to be considered the same sort of bad future change agent. And I guess it sort of was.