These literatures, although worthless in the true sense of the term, are variously decorated to attract the attention of the less intelligent men.
[Posted
April 30, 2010]TL;DR – Attention Shutting Down
Is information - sensory overload killing our attention spans? Or a spiritual vacuum?
The Atlantic July/August, 2008
- NICHOLAS CARR
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances – literary types, most of them – many say they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader,” he wrote. “What happened?” He speculates on the answer: “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?”
...Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace. When we read online, she says, we tend to become “mere decoders of information.” Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged. go to story
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The students are asking questions and getting answers, the politicians are asking questions and getting answers, the housewife is asking questions and getting answers, everyone is asking questions and getting answers, and they go on asking questions and getting answers for the whole of their lives, but the questions and answers do not satisfy anyone. They never satisfy the soul or the self, because such questions and answers have nothing to do with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. more
Thirst for novel information
purport, Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.5.13
People in general have a taste for literatures by instinct. They want to hear and read from the authorities something about the unknown, but their taste is exploited by unfortunate literatures which are full of subject matter for satisfaction of the material senses. Such literatures contain different kinds of mundane poems and philosophical speculations, more or less under the influence of maya, ending in sense gratification. These literatures, although worthless in the true sense of the term, are variously decorated to attract the attention of the less intelligent men. Thus the attracted living entities are more and more entangled in material bondage without hope of liberation for thousands and thousands of generations. Sri Narada Rishi, being the best amongst the Vaishnavas, is compassionate toward such unfortunate victims of worthless literatures, and thus he advises Sri Vyasadeva to compose transcendental literature which is not only attractive but can also actually bring liberation from all kinds of bondage. Srila Vyasadeva or his representatives are qualified because they are rightly trained to see things in true perspective. Srila Vyasadeva and his representatives are pure in thought due to their spiritual enlightenment, fixed in their vows due to their devotional service, and determined to deliver the fallen souls rotting in material activities. The fallen souls are very eager to receive novel informations every day, and the transcendentalists like Vyasadeva or Narada can supply such eager people in general with unlimited news from the spiritual world. In the Bhagavad-gita it is said that the material world is only a part of the whole creation and that this earth is only a fragment of the whole material world.
There are thousands and thousands of literary men all over the world, and they have created many, many thousands of literary works for the information of the people in general for thousands and thousands of years. Unfortunately none of them have brought peace and tranquillity on the earth. This is due to a spiritual vacuum in those literatures; therefore the Vedic literatures, especially the Bhagavad-gita and the Srimad-Bhagavatam, are specifically recommended to suffering humanity to bring about the desired effect of liberation from the pangs of material civilization, which is eating the vital part of human energy. The Bhagavad-gita is the spoken message of the Lord Himself recorded by Vyasadeva, and the Srimad-Bhagavatam is the transcendental narration of the activities of the same Lord Krishna, which alone can satisfy the hankering desires of the living being for eternal peace and liberation from miseries.
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