The Internet has competed for my woefully few reading-for-pleasure hours - ever since I have had it around 24/7. Before that books had my undivided attention. That said, I am able to appreciate Ray Bradbury's tirade against the internet. He has the following to say about it :
“It’s distracting,” he continued. “It’s meaningless; it’s not real. It’s in the air somewhere.”
Distracting, unreal and ether-based - absolutely but meaningless is perhaps a little too harsh an indictment. Bradbury loves libraries and is fighting to keep them around and well-funded - needless to say this is the right thing to do. If you do have the good fortune to have unlimited access to libraries, the internet may not been a life-saver but in a poorer, more backward country where libraries are a luxury, access to the web would be what it takes to bring the citizenry from figurative darkness to light. It can make the difference between making it across the digital divide or being left behind in technology prehistory. That is not meaningless.
Even if that were an over-statement given the not so erudite ways the medium is put to use by those who stand to benefit the most from it, the power of the internet is undeniable.
crossings as in traversals, contradictions, counterpoints of the heart though often not..
Subscribe to my Substack: Signals in the Noise
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Mutual Understanding
Found this essay very insightful being the parent of an adult child. Our relationship is evolving and it is yet to get to a point where we ...
-
An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no ma...
-
I, Ananya, am a suburban single mother minus the SUV that often comes with the territory. Ten years ago, I would have been awed by someone i...
-
Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that suc...
No comments:
Post a Comment