Kindle brain reminds me of a story of my friend. One of my friends had everything: a great husband second time around, a young healthy family, a nice house in a good neighbourhood and a great standard of living. I visited her when she was still on maternity leave and the afternoon went well, but one thing stuck in my mind: the concept of ‘baby brain’ – that she described where her thinking was somehow deficient and may be a liability in a work environment. That phrase has stuck with me recently.
Since moving to Hong Kong, I de-cluttered my life and sold or recycled the library of books I had built up previously, keeping on a small amount of them. My notes that I made in Moleskine books were scanned and stored in the cloud, you can see some of them that were used for blog posts like this on my flickr acount.
My desire to read hasn’t stopped and Instead I have ended up buying new books electronically. I first noticed the change that was coming from my new reading habit when I found that I was reviewing less books on this blog. The reason for that was quite simple; I was reflecting less on what I read electronically and was less engaged by it. Ideas were not having the same impact. What one article called ‘Kindle brain’.
This phenomena has implications for electronic reference books and learning. It isn’t only books that people have noticed this effect. Business cards have made a comeback, from a previous future of ‘beaming’ contact details over IrDA or BlueTooth between devices. Artifacts seem to give content meaning and impact.
More information
Your paper brain and your Kindle brain aren’t the same thing | Public Radio International
Why Startups Love Moleskines – The New Yorker
In search of objects — Benedict Evans
Rolodexes: A thing of the past? | Marketplace.org
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