Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age

For Birkerts (The Gutenberg Elegies), agency once meant something as simple as brushing dust from the needle of a record player and setting it to play once more. It meant mapping one's own road, sans GPS, or setting aside distractions to sink into the imaginary world found in a book. Like Susan Greenfield (Mind Change) and other technology skeptics, Birkerts argues in this collection of essays that humanity is evolving a less than desirable pattern of thought and behavior as we uncritically accept new technologies. Birkerts points to the plasticity of the human brain and suggests that we must, necessarily, be changed for the worse by our twitchy texting, googling, and e-reading. He makes his argument most compellingly as he describes his experience as a reader—how the physical text allows him to pursue a sustained thought, a unique reflection that leads to his own creative act. Birkerts warns that society will lose a great deal if it no longer cultivates focus, introspection, and individuality by encouraging its members to step off the grid and imagine a little for themselves.