Speed used to convey urgency; now we somehow think it means efficiency

["Ali, Saqib" <docbook.xml () gmail com>]

"My friend has just had his PC wired for broadband," writes the poet
Don Paterson. "I meet him in the café; he looks terrible—his face
puffy and pale, his eyes bloodshot. . . . He tells me he is now
detained, night and day, in downloading every album he ever owned,
lost, desired, or was casually intrigued by; he has now stopped even
listen­ing to them, and spends his time sleeplessly monitoring a
progress bar. . . . He says it's like all my birthdays have come at
once, by which I can see he means, precisely, that he feels he is
going to die."

The Internet has provided us with an almost unlimited amount of
information, but the speed at which it works—and we work through
it—has deprived us of its benefits. We might work at a higher rate,
but this is not work­ing. We can store a limited amount of information
in our brains and have it at our disposal at any one time. Making
decisions in this communication brownout, though without complete
infor­mation, we go to war hastily, go to meetings unprepared, and
build relationships on the slippery gravel of false impressions.
Attention is one of the most valuable modern resources. If we waste it
on frivolous communication, we will have nothing left when we really
need it.

Read more:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574358643117407778.html

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