We must recognise that screen scanning is but one kind of reading, a lesser one, and that it conspires against certain intellectual habits requisite to liberal-arts learning. The inclination to read a huge Victorian novel, the capacity to untangle a metaphor in a line of verse, the desire to study and emulate a distant historical figure, the urge to ponder a concept such as Heidegger's ontic-ontological difference until it breaks through as a transformative insight: those dispositions melt away with every 100 hours of browsing, blogging, IM-ing, Twittering, and Facebooking.

¶ 11:33 PM