This week around the global water cooler, there’s been a lot of buzz about Slow Reading. And if there’s anything I like better than Slow Food, it’s Slow Reading–the kind we do when we’re thoughtful, focused, and engaged. The problem, though, is that the internet, for all its merits, is making slow reading harder to do. By rerouting the circuitry of our brains, it’s turning them all into monkey minds.
That at least seems to be the verdict of Nicholas Carr, in his book The Shallows…and of me. I can’t speak for your monkey mind, so I’ll just speak for mine.
As you know if you’ve been tracking this blog, I’m an advocate of Slow. Slow food, slow books, slow reading, slow life. I grow a lot of my own veggies, make my own jam, and buy from local farmers; I won’t buy an e-reader; my five-year-old cell phone is not shiny or smart. I even make time in my week to do nothing. But I also live and work in the plugged-in world. Which means that after a few hours on the internet, my mind can get as chattery as any other primate’s.
If I were a stronger monkey, I would unplug for most of each day. And I wouldn’t leave my browser open when I’m writing. But I am not that monkey. So today, I called in reinforcements. I downloaded the software Freedom, which blocks internet access for however long I choose. I set it for 120 minutes. That’s two hours of freedom. From myself. Freedom from surfing and skittering across the surface of things, which eats up my time and makes confetti of my concentration. It makes it all too easy to avoid the hard thinking I need to do when I write. Today, for example, I sat down to work on an essay about my relationship to nature. I’ve been stuck on it for awhile, so after writing two new sentences and fiddling with a third, I clicked open my email, skipped to Facebook, checked on my blog, and before you could say, “ooh-ooh-ooh,” my mind started swinging from the trees.
Monkey mind is great for foraging: a mango here, banana there, an insect under that juicy leaf. It’s great for gathering information. But as writer Scott Russell Sanders once said to me, there’s a difference between information and understanding, and between understanding and wisdom. Only slow thought, contemplative time, can lead me to understanding. And only a deeper kind of attention and time will lead me to wisdom.
I don’t know about you, but I’m after wisdom in this life. So from now on, I’m climbing off the jungle-gym for a few hours today. And tomorrow, for a little longer. And in my new spare time, I’m cracking open a nice, slow book. Up next on my pile: William Least Heat-Moon’s Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey. At 562 pages, it should be a nice, long trip.
***
For your slow reading pleasure this week, I’ve put the hyperlinks here: “The Art of Slow Reading” in The Guardian, and Slow Reading by John Miedema; Nicolas Carr’s The Shallows ; my first sally into slow books; another reason I won’t buy an e-reader; Scott Russell Sanders; Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey; Freedom
Tags: Guardian, John Miedema, Nicholas Carr, slow reading, usfpool
July 17, 2010 at 5:17 pm |
Hi Tracy,
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for blogging about this software (Freedom). I am a PhD candidate who is studying for my orals, who is currently getting a paper ready for possible publication, and who is getting that very same paper ready to present at MAPACA this October. Like you, the moment I get stuck I log on and on and on … and before you know it I’ve run out of day. I’ve been trying to unplug with no luck. This software looks promising!!! Gads, I can just hug you! You might have saved me from myself so that I can pass my orals!!!
Big hugs,
Mary
July 17, 2010 at 6:12 pm |
Thanks for the hugs, Mary! Freedom installs easily (even for non-geeks like me), is really simple to use–and lordy, it’s a pleasure to have some time to myself in the (relative) quiet of my own brain. It does cost $10–but it’s priceless. Good luck on your orals, and keep me posted.
July 18, 2010 at 7:22 am |
I’m a bit puzzled by some of this – do your computers automatically go online when you turn them on? Mine doesn’t go online until I open Outlook or my internet browser.
I’ve just finished a course of study and understand the temptation to go online – check email, Facebook etc instead of writing that essay but I have to force myself not to open up online programmes. The temptation comes when I’ve gone online to check something and then want to open up Facebook for a quick look.
I did my first degree over forty years ago and have recently been studying at that level again. Forty years ago, nearly all the assessment took place at the end of the degree course – two weeks of examinations. Now it is all by assignment – producing work which contributes to the final grade roughly every six weeks or so. To me, this seems to put the pressure on to skim read everything, or simply just go for the relevant bits. ‘Just-in-time’ reading. I’m not convinced this is the best way to teach people although I am no fan of exams which mainly test your ability to do exams rather than your subject knowledge.
I suspect that financial reasons contribute to this change. The weekly tutorial – in my case just three or four students with the tutor, an established authority in his/her field, when we discussed in depth the chosen book and the essay prepared by one of us – is far more expensive in staff hours than larger group seminars and the marking of assignments.
Assingments are returned with detailed comments but there is no discussion – effectively all assessment is summative and formative assessment is non-existant.
July 18, 2010 at 7:25 am |
Pressed submit comment before I meant to! Apologise for spelling mistakes in last paragraph.
But basically, maybe we should add Slow Study to Slow Reading!
July 18, 2010 at 9:08 am |
Sue, I think adding Slow Everything would be a good idea. I’ve never studied or taught in a tutorial system, but imagine it as an ideal way to do both. I wish there were no such things as grades, and that everyone learned eagerly because they were curious and engaged with the world in general, and the world of ideas and books. That’s another whole can of worms…or monkeys. By the way, my browser doesn’t open automatically. I simply have very few powers of resistance.
July 18, 2010 at 4:34 pm |
I recall Northrop Frye, Canadian literary critic, observing that every generation perpetuates it’s own pastoral myth about the “Fall” of present society from some Edenic earlier time. Over the past century, I’d add, the theme of negative impacts arising from the accelerating pace in everything has recurred predominantly.
I think we need a new metaphor. That poor Monkey! We hold up his completely instinctual, wholesomely natural way of springing from limb to rock to limb as somehow inherently dark and faulty. An irony pervades, insofar as both humans and monkeys are primates, sharing overwhelming intimate, genetic connections.
Further to the idea of the pastoral myth, I haven’t encountered any muscular resistance to speed on the part of younger people. I believe we older types can misread their behavior, perceiving them to be caught up in a maelstrom. Perhaps, instead, many occupy the eye of the storm, in complete calm, utter stillness. One need go no further than to watch the sharp-pointed focus of a teen playing a complex video game. One might say they’ve been hypnotized, but another might say, they found the “flow”.
The idea that we’re getting “dumber” because of the internet, doesn’t strike me as legitimate. My dad, back in the 60s said the same thing about us dumb kids because we didn’t much study Latin, Rhetoric or Grammar. But lo! we survived, some of us developing sterling intellects.
Slow is cool, okay. Yeah, I like slow. But I think we need to rescue a healthier sense of dialectic, curiosity, and counter-intuitive perspectives. We need to slow down our rush to leap to conclusions about speed’s malignancy. And let’s include historical contemplation. The advent of the motorized cart early in the 20th-C, spawned a lament not dissimilar to what we hear now. Every new technology seems to spawn its variant.
The poor old Monkey!
Thanks for provoking thought with this post!
bob
July 18, 2010 at 8:23 pm |
Hi Bob, Thanks for chiming in here. “Slow reading” for me isn’t about speed per se, but about reading in a way that’s deeply engaged and focused. Surely there are times for skimming, times for jumping about; as a researcher who uses the internet frequently, I don’t feel any “fall” is implicit in such uses of material. What is problematic is the effect on our abilities to do the other kind of reading, which requires long periods of concentration and an ability to think more deeply about what we’re reading. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the way monkeys do their thing–they’re monkeys. But as a thinking human being, with a desire to read slowly when it’s appropriate, I don’t want my mind to do the monkey thing.
July 18, 2010 at 9:26 pm |
one thing you can’t ‘slow’ is parenting! reading, there’s a fine thing! i miss it with a 9mth old, but then don’t miss it… funny things, kids – they teach you so much as they learn so much themselves.
but great article, sue – i’m all for slow reading (when i get the chance) and have always bought and kept copies of books i read to ensure i have them to hand when i need to revisit them, to stimulate my thinking as the reading a paragraph or sentence did when the book was firmly in my midst, or when i read a reference to a book and can go to my shelf and rediscover the section the now-author mentions. often, it is these moments that enrich a book in my mind that otherwise it might not have done.
as my son grows i will read to him, slowly, allowing him to absorb the stories – but i fear by then he will be so connected he may be a walking receptor of the inter-web. but the world changes and we can change with it, but in a measured and considered way. i hope i can show him this and its inherent joys (btw, am a dedicated slow cooker, too. yum).
thanks again. ; )
July 19, 2010 at 8:07 am |
Yes, the world changes, and we all adapt in some fashion or other. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we have to move along without thought, or without preserving those parts of our present or past cultural lives that have meaning and value. Reading to your son is such a blessing to him–it’s the best way to show him the pleasures of slow reading, of having books on hand to visit and revisit. He may well be connected to the web in ways even his parents’ generation isn’t–but he’ll also have books, thanks to you. Having raised two daughters, I hear you about the lack of time to read. But you’ll be amazed at how the time also flies past; you’ll be returning to your own books before you know it. In the meantime, enjoy all the fabulous children’s books there are in the world.
July 18, 2010 at 11:32 pm |
Great article. I fervently wish I didn’t feel GUILTY for reading academic books too slowly and “pleasure” books at all. Internet reading somehow leapfrogs over those guilt-circuits. I’m a graduate student struggling with the surface-confetti too, and wanted to put a plug in for an alternative to Freedom (which, even at $10, I can’t afford). If you use Google Chrome as your browser, you can get a free extension called StayFocused that monitors your online time. You can either cut off your internet altogether for a specific period of time (the Nuclear Option) or you can allow yourself, say 10 minutes during your workday when you can look at your timewasting sites. Those sites (which you specify) are otherwise blocked. It’s been incredibly useful.
July 19, 2010 at 8:09 am |
Thanks for this suggestion about a free option for helping us stay off line. I wish you well as you continue your studies.
July 19, 2010 at 12:11 am |
….I’ve been reading your blog for a while now….thank you for the insights, the humor, and the honesty. I so glad you clicked your heels and stayed in the area.
Love you,
Ronn
July 19, 2010 at 8:12 am |
Hey Ronn, Thanks for reading–I noticed you’d signed up. Hope all’s well with you and yours, T
July 19, 2010 at 2:20 am |
What a great, responsive blog!
One thing I do really appreciate is the amount of information freely and easily available on the web. Again, when I was studying forty years ago, if a book wasn’t in the library and you couldn’t afford to buy it (and wait and wait for it to appear) you simply couldn’t access that information. Plus you really needed someone to tell you about it in the first place, especially if your library resources were limited.
But I have noticed how the way I read has changed over the years – got faster and faster – I’m now trying to re-educate myself to slow down – revisit what I’ve just read.
Thanks for posting this blog – and to everyone for all their comments!
July 19, 2010 at 8:15 am |
Thanks, Sue! I also appreciate the web for its information-gathering powers, and for allowing me to interact even in this distanced way with people like you! But it has its limitations, and its detriments. It’s a good occasion for us all to slow down and think about how to use it wisely, when to use it, when not. Good luck on your own slowing-down project–I wish you well.
July 19, 2010 at 6:07 am |
Why does an e-reader have to do with how slowly you read? I use one now and read the same words on the same pages as someone with a “hard copy.”
July 19, 2010 at 8:17 am |
Hi Kindle User–An e-reader doesn’t affect how slowly one reads, as far as a I know (though some folks think otherwise). It’s a different issue for me–you’re welcome to look back at my posts on e-readers and slow books (which is different from slow reading), and let me know what you think. Hope you’re reading great things no matter on what.
July 19, 2010 at 9:15 am |
I have really been enjoying this series of articles by a Slate cartoonist who went completely offline for two months.
July 19, 2010 at 11:47 am |
Thanks, Herb–I’ll check it out.
July 20, 2010 at 2:18 pm |
I’m all for slow reading, and I’d say I’m for slow writing, too. I’ve noticed that my prose is much better when I hand-write a paragraph than when I type it on a computer. It’s too easy to type a word. When I physically write something I begin the editing process earlier – in my head – and end up with more complete, yet succinct thoughts.
Thanks for the post!
-RLH
July 20, 2010 at 4:43 pm |
Hello RLH (aka moderndayserf): Boy–that is such a challenge for me: writing by hand. Using a computer has changed the way I compose, so it would definitely take me awhile to figure out how to hand write new work. But I’m going to give it a try and see what happens. I’m eager to see your Modern Day Serf book hit the shelves, too. Thanks for commenting!
July 21, 2010 at 8:59 am |
Hi Tracy, Thank you for your thoughtful piece and blog! It seems we are aligned in this quest for the Slow, as well as in the occasional inability to resist media’s siren call. (Yesterday, while reading an article on the way computers reset our abilities to concentrate, I paused to check e-mail.)
Thanks, too, for visiting my blog (www.slowfamilyonline.com) and for commenting on my piece on Slow Reading. I’m delighted to have discovered your blog and have added it to my blogroll.
July 21, 2010 at 9:19 am |
Hi there–thanks for clicking over to the monkey-mind blog. It seems Slow is on a lot of people’s minds, and I’m glad to find you, too.
July 21, 2010 at 12:41 pm |
[...] Tracey Seeley‘s monkey mind [...]
July 21, 2010 at 2:06 pm |
Hi Sharleen,
Nice blog post of your own there! Thanks for the link. Just to clarify, the “monkey mind” claim isn’t Carr’s–it’s my spin on things. You can also tell your friends that paper books actually have a lower environmental impact than e-readers do. If you scroll down the page on my blog, you’ll find “Read a Book, Save a Tree”–which lays out the data. The bottom line is, keep buying paper books. I always ask myself before I spring for a new book, “is it tree worthy?”
July 21, 2010 at 1:22 pm |
Hi, Tracey. I found this post when researching “slow reading” for my own blog. I like your post–and your monkey photo. I like what you say about how the internet makes “confetti” of your concentration — it does that to mine, too. And though I don’t want to spend $10 on Freedom, I can see how it might make the struggle to concentrate easier.
I also scrolled down and found your post on Read a Book, Save a Tree, with the link to the New York Times article. I’m with you, there. Maybe one day they’ll figure out how to make “real” books without dead trees, but for now, I refuse to feel guilty about the paper books on my shelf.
July 21, 2010 at 2:02 pm |
Thanks, Sharleen–It’s always a pleasure to find like minds out there in the world–and good for you for keeping a library. I find the visual landscape of books on the shelf to be a wonderful thing. It’s a map of what I’ve read, where my mind has been, and how ideas speak to each other. Cheers!
July 21, 2010 at 2:45 pm
BTW, I fixed the “monkey mind” thing on my blog.
July 21, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Hey Sharleen,
Thanks–I didn’t want to put words in Carr’s mouth. Hope your own monkey mind is finding a nice, shady spot to rest. Tracy
July 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm |
This is a great blog! Recently, a bad wifi hook up left us without internet access unless we carry our laptops to kitchen and hook them to a cable. There, we have to stand and surf. What a difference!
I also used freedom, which was wonderful, but have found this inconvenience, as well as Japan’s lack of free wifi to be life changing.
July 22, 2010 at 6:09 pm |
Thanks, Kate! Glad you’re finding some freedom, too–no matter how it comes. I was offline today for 5 hours. Delicious.
August 2, 2010 at 8:37 am |
I, erm…, own an eReader. My husband also bought us iPhones before we left on vacation this year, and I’m finding that a MAJOR distraction.
But I’m not sure my eReader is as big a distraction as my iPhone. I’ve read books straight through, highlighting passages I wanted to go back and read through again, and I can also make comments/notes on the piece. Though, sure, I tend to download my library’s limit for eBooks, and never get around to reading most, or sometimes even any, of them.
Again, as a librarian and book reviewer I order/receive books on an almost daily basis. Piles and piles of books are stacked all over my house, glaring at me accusingly. And publicists/authors ride my back, asking “Have you read the book yet?”
Never saying “no” to a book (or very rarely, if it’s, say, a romance which I don’t read) doesn’t help, either. I feel I’m constitutionally incapable of turning down a free book!
My life needs a re-examination. I know that. I have trouble settling down and doing nothing, though in my defense I take regular unplugged retreats, and this summer was unplugged during our vacation to a tiny town in Maine. And I didn’t miss it. So maybe there’s hope for me?!
August 2, 2010 at 3:17 pm |
Of course, there’s hope! Especially if you hide your iPhone. Better yet, ask someone else to hide it.
August 22, 2010 at 6:05 am |
Just FYI, Chapter 2 of John Miedema’s book is available online: http://litwinbooks.com/slowreading-ch2.php
August 22, 2010 at 9:06 am |
Hi, Rory–Thanks for this note; I’ve actually read this online chapter, and encourage everyone else to rush over. John’s leading the way here!
August 22, 2010 at 6:35 am |
I must admit I am looking forward to getting my first eReader later this week – just to try to slow down the piles of books growing around me! But an iPhone – currently no!
August 22, 2010 at 9:05 am |
Hi Sue–Great to hear from you again. I’m also not in line for an iPhone–and still building piles of books around my desk, bed…. Let me know how you like your e-reader. Just don’t drop it in the bathtub.
September 20, 2010 at 5:06 pm |
[...] Seeley writes in her blog about “Slowing Down My Own Monkey Mind” and dowloading software that forces you off of the computer during certain time blocks. If I [...]
December 18, 2010 at 12:09 pm |
[...] Zuckerberg thing. Some of you, for reasons unknown, arrived by way of a mad, global interest in spider monkeys. Brave new [...]