Who Do You Read? (Remember – What You Read Reveals/Shapes Who You Are)
There is a lot being written about the way(s) the internet is stealing our ability to focus long and hard on a single thing – like a book. I have blogged about it recently.
But I would not give it up. It brings me too much – like Ebert!
And, now I tweet. (Follow me here). I suppose I use it too much to publicize our blog posts. I have not yet learned how to tweet well.
Roger Ebert won a webby, and gave his three word acceptance speech last night. (five word maximum. Watch the acceptance speeches here). Here was his speech, in full:
“Veni, vidi, vici.”
And here are a couple of paragraphs from his latest blog post, Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!:
I vowed I would never become a Twit. Now I have Tweeted nearly 10,000 Tweets. I said Twitter represented the end of civilization. It now represents a part of the civilization I live in. I said it was impossible to think of great writing in terms of 140 characters. I have been humbled by a mother of three in New Delhi. I said I feared I would become addicted. I was correct.
Twitter is now a part of my daystream.
I’ve made a change recently. After writing my blog, “The quest for frisson” and reading two recent articles about internet addiction, I have looked hard at my own behavior. For some days now I have physically left the room with the computer in it, and settled down somewhere to read. All the old joy came back, and I realized the internet was stealing the reading of books away from me. Reading is calming, absorbing, and refreshing for the mind after hectic surfing. Chaz and I have quiet chats where we sit close and she talks and waits for my reply and this is soothing after the online tumult. I like the internet, but I don’t want to become its love slave.
…women make the best tweeters. They tweet more about life, and less about facts. Okay, so tell me I’m wrong.
We read to learn and connect and think and grow. Ebert is one that I read to keep learning and hopefully keep growing. I still read books – – fairly thoroughly and carefully. But there are so many books, and then so much more, to read…
(follow Ebert on Twitter here).
