Fletcher Checks In #2

Fifteen bloggers on June 18, and eight open invites. You kids are amazing me...at least I think you are. I really can't remember how many kids were blogging last year at this time. But just wait. People will start blogging in August, and start talking about the Postman chapters we are talking about now, and you'll think, "Oh my goodness! That is SO LAST JUNE!"

I saw Amusing Ourselves to Death at the Long Beach Towne Center Barnes and Noble yesterday on the summer homework table, and of course, Brave New World is everywhere.

I mentioned in an earlier blog comment that The Shallows is blowing my mind. It IS. I am going to want to talk about that book, too. It's about how the internet is actually changing the way human beings THINK, and therefore has an impact on how the human brain actually FUNCTIONS. Your plastic brain is shaped by your experiences, and working/reading/playing online is definitely something we all experience. When we encounter those rare people who are NOT online (great Grandma, hermits, Aborigines, Mr. Jacobsma), we consider them Luddites. The important thing is that all this cultural change is going on without analysis. We need to just stop and ask, How is this changing the Human Being?? Because we ARE being changed, and we are mostly oblivious and uncritical. We just want to see what the new iPhone will DO.