The point of the post is that technology is causing people to read and think differently, and likely for the worse. I am reminded of Eben's comments about how poor reading skills represent "a societal fail." He mentioned television and push media, but also the outsize reading assignments of law school.

How we think

My own experience is that push media and oversize reading loads can be barriers to reading and thinking well. I think the "drinking from a firehose" metaphor is apt for 1L year, and that the challenge is exacerbated where there are also other streams of inputs constantly flowing as well. I think technology takes a situation that is already suboptimal and makes it worse. Push media normalizes the fragmentation of our attention and impedes sustained thought. On a national level, I am horrified to read news reports quoting politicians' 140 character, misspelled, ungrammatical "tweets" about this or that issue du jour.

What we think

I think this is a relatively banal observation, although I think that the problem is under-discussed compared to its gravity. It also seems difficult to tell what to do about it. But I think there's another important dimension here: impacts on what we think about.

I think one effect of the size of 1L reading assignments is that pushes, structurally, towards substantively orthodox legal thinking. If the goal is to wade through 60 pages and quickly identify takeaways, there's no time to consider first principles or alternative approaches. I am reminded of Noam Chomsky's argument about the political ramifications of the requirement for "concision" on the part of guests on television shows: heterodox arguments require more elaboration and evidence, since they are not built on propositions already assumed by the audience, so enforcing concision ends up enforcing conventional thinking.

I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts about how technology, in conjunction with the size of our reading assignments, affects reading and thinking - and also what might be done about it.

-- DevinMcDougall - 07 Mar 2010

I agree that technology causes people to read and think differently, however, I'm not sure it is for the worse.

On the whole, I agree with Eben's viewpoint that television is one of the main culprits of "poor reading skills." But, I think it is too facile to think that television and other things are universally bad. I remember reading this book by a pop-Science author Steven Johnson called Everything Bad is Good For You, " where he argues (rather speculatively at some points) that modern television shows actually help us comprehend complex narratives (see "multiple threading") and develop portions of the brain responsible for multitasking. I left the book at home so I can't really go into more detail. But I'll have it in less than a week if you want to borrow it.

To the more substantive point here: Yes. 1L reading assignments do push us toward substantive orthodox thinking. I see a drastic difference in the way I behave during days when I read and days when I'm not reading. And, I feel like law school in its form and structure is built to stifle creativity and crush our limbic system. My thought is that it has something to do with the way lawyers and judges write which is often, but not always, very dry and verbose.

For example, I feel like on this Moot Court Brief we are being encouraged to do absolutely nothing creative. What can be done about it? I'm not sure. I think Eben's course offers one good answer: listen to music. It stimulates completely different parts of the brain. Music always puts me in a more creative (and often better) mood when Law School drags me down.

-- MatthewZorn - 07 Mar 2010

Devin, the comparison you draw between technology and our reading load is very interesting. Regarding their respective “firehose effects,” you mention the major cognitive consequences—poor reading skills/ non-creative legal thinking. I would emphasize the psychological consequences—apathy, dependence. Having all this information coming at us at all times makes us care about each additional piece of information less. At the same time, we have come to depend upon the constant stream of info such that its sudden disappearance would traumatize us. We are becoming weaker, feebler animals, in my opinion.

Regarding the reading load, I think it engenders the same feelings of apathy and dependence. The assignment of heavy reading is one tool by which CLS controls what we think, but this occurs on multiple levels. Consider, for example, the way in which the casebook authors select and excerpt cases. First, a few hundred cases are chosen out of the universe of cases because they best fit into the authors’ tidy paradigms. These authors then sculpt the cases down in various degrees to fit their agenda perfectly. By “their” I refer, not merely to the agenda of the casebook authors, but also that of those who control the casebook authors—Foundation Press and the like. Now, we have so much reading that few—if any—of us actually go look up the full opinion after reading the casebook version to see what the case is really about. Here, then, is where I locate apathy.

This holds true, I believe, whether or not I refer to students who actually do all the reading, some of the reading, or none of the reading at all. We simply accept the excerpted version, condense it further for note-taking purposes, and never think of it again (until finals, perhaps?).

-- KalliopeKefallinos - 10 Mar 2010

Here's an interesting article about how technology is affecting the self. I personally feel more a member of the television generation than the Internet generation, as I'm not very active in the social networking world and greatly enjoyed my year abroad when I didn't have a cell phone, but definitely relate to the boredom he discusses. Either way, good food for thought (if you have the attention span to read it!)

-- RorySkaggs - 29 Mar 2010