I’d like to make a confession here.
I used to be smart.
And I’m not talking count-my-own-change smart. I’m talking IQ-over-150-reading-Tolstoy-at-10-premier-MENSA-material kind of smart. I asked for Rand McNally atlases and electronic typewriters for Christmas. A telescope with moons-of-Jupiter magnification capabilities sent me into a frenzied excitement.
And then I discovered the internet.
Now, I’m not trying to assign blame here, and I don’t (really) expect your condolences for my plight, but I want to be very clear here: I could have been someone important if not victimized by the age of information sharing.
And I don’t think I’m alone. While the World Wide Web is brimming with up-to-the-minute news and politics, extensive resources on history, science, math, art, and anything else I was mildly amused with in college, it also houses television shows, entertainment blogs, Meccas for online shopping, YouTube, ESPN and, dare I say it? Facebook.
That’s not to say that, as a generation, we’ve stopped learning, but somewhere along the line, we stopped talking about it. I don’t remember the last time any of my close friends brought up the Paleolithic period, but I have had roughly 1,245 referrals to the “David at the Dentist” clip on YouTube.
And then there are the ads – enough to send a helpless girl with ADD into a downward spiral of pointing and clicking. Just yesterday I was (wait for it) researching the coming exhibits at the Getty when presented with an advertisement for Bloomingdales.
Getty who?
Even my attempts to keep up on the latest news are foiled by the more entertaining “Highlights from the Golden Globes” videos presented on CNN. Suddenly the Haitian earthquake or the state of healthcare reform are overshadowed by the Valentino Jennifer Anniston wore on Sunday.
And so, while my work ethic or general capability to stay on task might have something to do with my waning intellect, I’d prefer to blame the Internet for the schizophrenic tendencies of my –
Hold on, I have a new tweet.
3 comments:
Consider yourself lucky . . . I have never been smart. But what I lack in IQ I make up for with my sparkling personality and good looks. Now excuse me while I go and check my facebook.
Bah. It’s far savvier to have Internet than intellect. Spend 5 days lumbering through moody Russian lit for answers... or get all the existential guidance you need on Yahoo! horoscopes in under 5 minutes?
P.S. I was enjoying your blog in silence until today—when I realized that’s creepy.
Cheers
Yeah, and another bad thing is smart people like you and me used to be a wealth of knowledge that no one else could fathom, but now mere mortals have access to that same information and more via the very Internet which has lured me into mental slumber for hours on end...
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