To John Green: The Novel in the Age of Google

A response to John Green's "Smancy Hotel Room"
Is the new shiny crowding out the novel. Do we have time to read anymore? I don't I'm cranking videos.

Article: "Is Google Making us Stupid"? by Nicholas Carr (The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupi...

Shirt:
http://johnnydurhamclothing.com

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• vlogbrothers
• John_Green
• David_Levithan
• Levithan
• Will_Grayson
• Grayson
• novel
• google
• information
• learning
• time

[Theblargen]

1:47 OMG WHERE DID YOUR FINGERS GO?! :O

lol

[mickeleh]

@Theblargen I"m not sure. But it was painless. And they came back.

[ryangolf1212]

i see green reflected off of your head :O

[mickeleh]

@ryangolf1212 The green is accounted for in "Quarterly Report Q1, 2010"

[skrewuloser]

unless I'm wrong & remembering Plato's own story, I'm pretty sure that the myth of the invention of writing is itself oral, involving a "pharaoh" who has the invention brought before him and states that it would make men not forgetful since they'd be using paper as a stand-in for memory; which I 'm not sure has been the effect of writing.

Also, you mention "information" & the novel. I think there's a Walter Benjamin essay that says that the birth of the notion of Information is the death of art.

[mickeleh]

@skrewuloser thanks for mentioning the Walter Benjamin essay. I'll be on the lookout for it

[vlogbrothers]

Belated response because touring makes me youtubeless: Always a pleasure to hear from you. What I said sloppily and meant to say more clearly: I think one of the functions novels serve is to train our brains to line information up narratively (i.e., moby dick teaches us nothing about whaling but may teach us something about how to organize the information in our own lives in a more memorable way). This is one of the main reasons researchers have come up with for why we would read long fiction...

[mickeleh]

@wilsontech1 Thanks, friend. I think you nailed it: LOL is exactly the response to "politics in my future?"

[Xsuvival]

I subbed by 1:00, DFTBA

[NoLife2point0]

This makes me happy..

[Theblargen]

@mickeleh

I didn't know green screens were master surgeons. :P

[Ahabite]

"Dying world of print," or changing world of print? And whether Google is actually making us dumber needs to be taken in context and adjusted (like the value of money over time) so we can allow for distortion. Consider that now, with the easy access to an ocean of information, we have the potential to both know more and the expectation to know more (there is just more to know). That we barely stay afloat (forget things and misremember) in this ocean, is simply a reflection of this.

[caseyjz1]

I have heard, though, that when you present information in a narrative form, that that information is easier to remember. Perhaps that is what John meant. (Like Jesus and the parables, the story is the example of the concept)

[Nikki1862]

You're very witty and intelligent. I really enjoy your videos. :D