iPavlov
5th August 2010
The New New Thing asserts:
You think your car radio is broken because it doesn’t display the name of the song and the artist. You tap a word on a paperback and wonder why the definition doesn’t automatically pop up. You swipe a digit across the screen of your cell phone and all you get are fingerprint smudges . . . Our touchscreen existence has literally rewired our brains . . .
Yes!
What shall we name this New New Thing that literally reWires our brains?
iPavlov.
Hey, kids, it’s not the technology that makes you; it’s the thoughtlessness.
reWired is only Low WATT zombies ambling along the Peripheral Route, Cue-ing along, Ding-Donging a song.
Again, Whitehead says it nicely.
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.