Confessions of an Information Junkie

Alright, I admit it. I'm a nerd. While others are spending their prime time television viewing hours enthralled with reality dating shows, I spend my time watching the Science Channel. What else would you expect from someone who was once the president of the Match Club in high school. So last night on a show called Brink, which is all about emerging technologies, two social-science experts were debating whether or not this new endless stream of information is making us more or less smart. On the one hand, we are dealing with far more ideas than ever before, thinking of things in completely new terms, and communicating with each other faster and faster all the time. On the other hand, the constant torrent of information prevents us from taking the time to be truly contemplative about the ideas and notions we are encountering. One expert pointed out that poetry is being read online in numbers higher than the medium has ever been read before in history, but the naysayer pointed out that reading in volume isn't the same as truly internalizing the emotions and concepts that the poetry is intended to comply.