From the March 2009 issue of The Sun magazine, I came across an interview with Nicholas Carr, author of the Atlantic article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” I found the entire interview to be enlightening as Carr discussed the internet’s “re-wiring” of our brains and of an internet-user’s relationship to information. One particular question I found to be very relevant with the overall theme of this blog:

“Cooper [interviewer]: Do you think computers have harmed our relationship with nature?
Carr: I certainly think they’ve gotten in the way of our relationship to nature. As we increasingly connect with the world through computer screens, we’re removing ourselves from direct sensory contact with nature. In other words, we’re learning to substitute symbols of reality for reality itself. I think that’s particularly true for children who’ve grown up surrounded by screens from a young age. You could argue that this isn’t necessarily something new, that it’s just a continuation of what we saw with other electronic media like radio or TV. But I do think it’s an amplification of those trends.”

Computers and the internet can be useful tools in the democratization of voices, in increasing productivity and the speed of gathering information, but what sacrifices might be made to a person’s relationship to place, to the natural world and to local community when any particular media’s “symbols of reality” are either confused with or championed over the tangible realities that surround each individual and locale?