Cram Nation

We are what we eat, the adage goes.

So what happens if we nibble on bare-bones news from CNN tickers, broken-sentenced text messages and iPod mixes featuring singles sung by whatshername?

In an Information Age where the mindless wiggling of fingers across a pad conjures up any answer instantly, are our so-called “efficiencies” rotting our originality, creativity and ability to think deeply?

A recent trip to a local watering hole sparked an avalanche of questions…

After all, pubs used to be a place where everybody knew your name, a spot where mustachioed Cliff the Mailman and pillow-bellied Norm the Accountant packed work away and swapped stories.

However, as I turned my gaze to the couple next to me, I saw a thirtysomething guy and gal fidgeting with their iPhones from their bar stools. The couple was checking e-mail, comparing song lyrics and looking up directions for tomorrow’s trip.

I used to get scolded when I played my GameBoy too much in the presence of people, but now it seems like everyone has their head down, engrossed in their own game of ‘tinker with my technology.’

Yes, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, we are more plugged in to information than ever before. But what is it doing to us?

Over the course of a year, one-third of college-educated Americans do not read one novel, short story or poem, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Before the term “condescending bookworm” materializes in your thoughts about the author of this entry, consider the evidence…

“I cannot live without books,” Thomas Jefferson said.
“I discovered books and read forever,” John Adams wrote.
Without these men, I probably would have played cricket across the pond in high school instead of baseball. I feel safe in calling them ‘free thinkers.’

My point?

We’re avoiding book-reading and in-depth thought, chowing down on intellectual fast food and outsourcing our cerebral freedom. Cable news talking heads tell you how to think. iTunes tells you what music you like. Is life good or is your brain too numb from information bombardment to evaluate it?

New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote that in today’s “outsource your brain” culture, “young people are forgoing memory before they even have a chance to lose it.”
In fact, Wired columnist Clive Thompson cited a 2007 study that found that one-third of the 3,000 subjects who were under 30 could not recall their own cell phone number from memory.

Yikes.

Thomas Jefferson laid the bricks for our individual freedoms by thinking freely. Are Google, BlackBerry and Wikipedia enslaving that individuality?

Maybe a book will tell me…