The Internet is a machine designed for the efficient and automated collection

The Internet is a machine designed for the efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information, and its legions of programmers are intent on finding the one best method”—the perfect algorithm—to carry out every mental movement of what we've come to describe as knowledge work.” The goal, as Taylor defined it in his celebrated 1911 treatise, The Principles of Scientific Management, was to identify and adopt, for every job, the one best method” of work and thereby to effect the gradual substitution of science for rule of thumb throughout the mechanic arts.” Once his system was applied to all acts of manual labor, Taylor assured his followers, it would bring about a restructuring not only of industry but of society, creating a utopia of perfect efficiency.



As the late MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum observed in his 1976 book, Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation, the conception of the world that emerged from the widespread use of timekeeping instruments remains an impoverished version of the older one, for it rests on a rejection of those direct experiences that formed the basis for, and indeed constituted, the old reality.” In deciding when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock. It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of reading” are emerging as users power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. As part of the five-year research program, the scholars examined computer logs documenting the behavior of visitors to two popular research sites, one operated by the British Library and one by a U.K. educational consortium, that provide access to journal articles, e-books, and other sources of written information.

A pathologist who has long been on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has taken on a staccato” quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. A professor friend of mine the othr day spoke to me on the phone and told me that he was in his office for consultation with students about various issues and internships.

The scientists used an fMRI scans (similar to those pictured) to find that neural changes created by reading the novel were associated with physical sensation and movement systems - suggesting that reading a work of fiction can transport a person int. So, that, the book and the internet, acoording to my postulations, should be made to work in tandem, becasue, coming from a writer's/researcher's perspective, for me, it is a plus and a boon-to have access to both books and the Web to splurge and dig into..