Searching as a form of thinking
My new favorite blog for researching new media info is Clive Thompson’s “Collision Detection.” In "search me" (http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/001110.html) Thompson discusses his reliance on search engines and even goes as far to refer to search engines as “part of [his] basic thought processes.” He cites Steven Johnson’s article “Tool for Thought,” explores the ways he searches for information. He believes that using search engines feels like thinking. Different search results trigger new ideas for him that he may not have come up with on his own. I find this concept fascinating. I guess you could call me “old school” because I still enjoy going to the library and browsing through books. This physical act of browsing helps me trigger new ideas, although it may take a little longer. However, I am becoming more reliant on the internet for research…at least initial research. I think my biggest problem with searching the internet is the over abundance of information. I think I simply get too overwhelmed and don’t know what to do with it. Ideas trigger here and there but don’t fully develop. I find myself bookmarking something, thinking “oh this is important. I’ll read it later.” I find comfort knowing that I don’t necessarily need to take in the information; I can easily pull up the page when I need it. It’s the same with cell phones. I no longer have phone numbers memorized. When I lost my cell phone over the summer, I felt so unconnected. I had to somehow recover all my lost contacts. Thus, it seems as if the information at our fingertips makes us somewhat (for lack of a better term) lazy. Or maybe these memorization / memory retention skills have shifted to new ways of thinking. What they are? Not sure; I haven’t figured it out yet.
3 Comments:
Hey Jodi--could you edit your post to include the links? Thanks! :-)
7:13 PM
As for technology’s influence on ideas, sometimes it makes me feel like I have ADD. I am constantly having ideas triggered when using new media, like the Internet, and then I tirelessly attempt to store and organize those ideas. I struggle to complete a search without being interrupted by another or seeing my conception of the original idea grow (in association with others) in exponential ways.
Some of the visions for new media were to help people with what were considered “menial” processes, such as retaining and organizing information. This reminds me of what I would consider a similar shift in focus away from the canon of “Memory” as a major part of public speaking in connection with the development of writing as a technology. The focus shifted to manuscript speaking and more discussions evolved about oral interpretation. I am unsure if uses of these technologies make us lazy. However, I do think that we focus on other things until the technology is taken away (I think of the many times my cell phone battery died and I had no battery charger). I think that it shifts the way we do things and we may not realize or we may forget how that shift in the process of accomplishing a particular goal may actually affect that goal’s process as well as the goal itself. For example, we may not always take into consideration (or we may just constantly swear about the fact) that Google is a filter like any other search engine that selects out the bits of information through (what I imagine to be) a probability and term recognition software program… Or that when using a cell phone rather than a conventional phone we may be more apt to multitask because of we are not tied (wire or wirelessly) to anything. The convenience of technology seems to help us focus on other things when it works as we expect it should, but affects the process and goal more than we sometimes realize or desire.
10:14 PM
Nicholson Baker comes to mind with regards to "old school" and "searching as a form of thinking."
For some, Baker might be considered something of a Luddite in his work, _The Double Fold_, where he chronicles his effort to save newspapers and card catalogues from being destroyed after being digitized. He spent a 1/3 of his savings to bring an entire collection over from England.
On the other hand, Baker has followed the word LUMBER as it appears in all sorts of novels-poems-popular culture-historical manifestations. Though I haven't read this essay in years, I remember being impressed by the sheer number of linkages Baker managed.
Now, the strange thing is that I can't remember whether Baker managed all these linkages of LUMBER with or without a browser. Did he find LUMBER in his browsing of the labyrinths of a library or through internet software that curiously goes by the same name: browsers.
Stranger still, in wondering how Baker went about this latter project, I must concede that my thinking about this project comes about in a public forum--a blog--which is closer to Thompson's sentiment, perhaps, than the worn leather bindings or yellowing newspaper pages of Baker's latest work, _The Double Fold_.
That is, if I were to inquire into Baker's search for LUMBER, my own search will have been implicated and complicated by the very medium in which I would wonder how close Baker's work dis/engages.
Is Baker's LUMBER gathered by an "old school" library search? Did he, instead, use a browser? In asking such questions on a blog, what comPLIcations does this suggest for my own foldings of LUMBER?
Ah, but then I remember his name is Baker!
And Bakers, of course, fold and refold dough!
Doh! ;)
10:35 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home