Maryanne Wolf has a book called Reader, Come Home about the way that Digital City is rewiring out brains to have less patience for reading. We no longer immerse ourselves in books. We no long savor great writing or re-read great passages. Sad to say, I did not have the patience to read the whole book.
I notice that my writing style now emphasizes compression. Fewer anecdotes or “throat clearing.” Get to the point.
Compression is not costless. When I listen to “Carry On” by CSNY on Spotify I don’t get the same physical thrill that I used to get from the bass-organ interlude that seemed to wash over my brain in the analog version. You don’t hear the harmonics and overtones in John Phillips’ meticulous arrangements for the Mamas and the Papas in MP3.
The other night I was downstairs dancing. The session leader, in LA, was Orly, a high-energy, carrot-topped pixie. She was playing Tefillot, a brilliantly choreographed dance that I’ve probably enjoyed doing more than a hundred times over the last few years. My wife came downstairs with her computer, and she was watching a session that was based in Denver, with a guest teacher Marcelo based in Argentina. He was teaching Smachot, a difficult dance that I have not done enough times to know. So I turned down Orly and switched to Marcelo.
Is this good or not? Why should we not just stick to one session, rather than switch back and forth? In Analog City, we go to a session, and there would be no option to jump to another session. The Analog City session would be run by a very dedicated and competent leader, who nonetheless lacks the charisma of Orly or Marcelo. The Digital City options are in some sense better, but there is not the same continuity.
It’s like the difference between skimming through Internet writing and sticking with a book. I fear we are losing the capacity for the latter.
On the other hand, we’re also getting older and our intelligence naturally falls off over time. It may be technology, but it may just be time.
“When I listen to ‘Carry On’ by CSNY on Spotify I don’t get the same physical thrill that I used to get from the bass-organ interlude that seemed to wash over my brain in the analog version.”
I wonder how much of your perceived difference is real vs. a mirage.
1) there are probably diminishing marginal returns to listening to a particular song over and over. The euphoria you felt the first few times through is not going to be sustained at the same level through say the hundredth listening. In other words, desensitization is going to play some factor in your perceived difference.
2) how much of your perceived difference is related to age-related hearing loss (or presbycusis)? My ability to hear nuance in music has definitely declined over the years.
3) are you using quality speakers or headphones? Please don’t tell me that you are using your tinny computer speakers and then comparing those to the sound system you had in the 1960s.
That said, I always found the sound quality to be quite mediocre on Spotify and that’s part of the reason I stopped using it and migrated to Apple Music.
Here is North Texas legend SRV. RIP.
https://youtu.be/uu7haLxD2WM
Some of this is, alas, just getting older. “The gondola song” – a kind of ‘troubadour’ song from Japan (1915, my translation) – “Life is short. Let yourself fall in love while you are still young ladies. Before the crimson glow fades from your lips. Before the tidal ardors of passion, recede and cool within you. For because you will be different tomorrow, there is no such thing as waiting to experience these things that way, later on.”
Also paradox of choice and affluence. (Consider Ken Jennings’ story about growing up overseas when all the other kids of American officials were forced by necessity to watch the same, one English-language channel, which showed Jeopardy after school. And so all the kids could be culturally synchronized and talk about the same thing with each other at school the next day, which turned out to be … about what was on Jeopardy last night.)
But otherwise, we are quickly becoming a post-literate society. It’s possible that literacy (and patience in general) takes exercise of effort and willpower for a lot of people, and so most people were only literate when we had no other options. Kind of like everyone was fitter before it was possible to make a living in a sedentary way and easily afford unlimited quantities of hyper-pallatable foods.
I have noticed that lots of young people now often don’t even bother to type in texts to each other. Many hold the smartphones up to their mouths and leave mini voicemails instead, like audio tweets.
The podcast phenomenon is just one manifestation of this, and so is twitter and more photographic instagram and memes. People have forgotten that being an interesting and entertaining “radio host” is an art, and in the case of Limbaugh and Rogan, a kind of genius. But not everybody can do it well, and most are terrible at it. They are the polar opposite of ‘get to the point’ and it’s like the old SNL “delicious dish” skits about some local NPR show with the most boring conversation with the most boring people in the world. “We could do a whole show alone on the electrifying kaleidoscope of Ireland’s dry, flat breads.”
Paradoxically, it also means that certain written products – especially from government bureaucracies and courts – become much larger and grow like tumors. That’s because, once all the people who can make trouble for you and whose time is valuable and scarce completely give up on reading anything, there is no disciplining of an “effective word count limit” or countervailing pressure to cut things down to the essentials or digestible bandwidth. All that leaves is the pressure in the other direction to not miss any possible detail or careful hedges for fear of what a court might do with any tiny gap or error.
I have certainly noticed where I work, even highly educated, intelligent, and affluent people have suddenly become stubborn mules you must drag and whip to get them to really pay attention to anything longer than a few paragraphs, and the art of close reason and attention to detail is quickly evaporating. There are a few people who seem to be so naturally good at this that it is not discipline or training but a mere outpouring of their natural personality and disposition, and these people have suddenly become more valuable and indeed, indispensable in many organizations for polishing up and quality control.
Bernie was right. There are too many deodorant choices.
Computers, and wi-fi, been berry berry bad for High Fidelity sound. Most tech audio philes got sucked into becoming computer geeks, which was both fun and paid better and there were already diminishing returns to better audio.
I recall some hi-fi friends not liking CDs over analog vinyl (which spell check fails to help me spell!). [Vinyl is coming back – more records were sold than CDs last year in the US.]
If the purpose of the music is to move and dance to, the quality of the music itself is much less important than … the beat. And the energy. I love dancing, too, but notice that I’m almost the only one in my family of 6 willing and able to listen to music.
To sit. Listen. And not try to do other things. Just listen to the music.
Like the Beatles sang “We all want to change the world”, or Tears for Fears “Everybody wants to rule the world”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ni_c0IMP-c
(Which now I’m listening to as I write, not just listening to)
I like getting to the point.
I like a few related anecdotes; sometimes I like some Off Topic links.
For arguments, “getting to the point” is the point. Like a destination.
Or to make a decision.
For enjoyable conversation, being interesting, enjoying the trip is the point.
[So Youtube then offers me many choices including … CSN:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwSdb6vrA9I
Steven Stills gave a great concert at the US Naval Academy in 1975-76]
I can’t hear the MP3 vs WAV difference on my wimpy headphones. When I’m doing something else, too, it doesn’t matter nearly so much.
The ease of switching, where previously it was more difficult, means new habits need to be formed to optimize the amount of switching done.
My now-15 yo son knows a huge amount of skeletal history thru lots of “5 min history of xxx” vids. I had to read lots of books, with lots of nuance whose details I’ve mostly forgotten, to know more than him — altho he loves to share and is even starting to teach me a few things.
do do do do do
. do . do . do do-do-do …
[music in text is way way inferior]
Self discipline is hard.
Since it requires the work of discipline.
Against your own desires.
My kids to a big extent, and me to a much less extent, also listen to background music while playing computer video games, while turning down the game sound.
I’m pushing my son, our 4th, to always have a book he’s reading. He decided on the Slovak version of The Fellowship of the Ring. I loved those books and read the Hobbit and The Trilogy multiple times. I recall a couple of college weekends:
Friday afternoon and all night – The Fellowship of the Ring
until finishing around dawn, then a nap, a Sat. lunch and The Two Towers, with a late dinner before joining Frodo and Sam running away from Boromir and going East.
Sunday brunch and The Return of the King.
I would also read Dune in one sitting.
I also read each of the Harry Potter books in one sitting, the last 4 (4, 5, 6, 7) thru the after midnight they were first sold. In the list of books 2000-2020, there was one guy who mentioned Harry Potter, and these books really are fantastic. Partly because they’re so interesting they hold your interest and you don’t want to be distracted.
The movies coming out reduces the desire and magic of the books, tho most of the movies are quite good.
The point of this post was more conversation than argumentatively making a point, with personal anecdotes mildly related. Tho it’s very asynchronous.
Reading LOTR over a weekend, in high school and college, which was in the late Sixties and early Seventies for me. Yes, I remember.
I was one of those early reader kids. Neither of my children (both bright) showed the slightest interest in learning to read, or in reading anything once they learned (smh).
That’s why I’m grateful to JK Rowling, because “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” was the first book that I ever saw my daughter actually curled up with.
“Tears for Fears ‘Everybody wants to rule the world’.”
Owned the album on audio cassette back in like 1986. Played it so much that I probably ruined it. Audio quality on digital seems the same or better than what I remember from back then.
I much preferred “The Working Hour” and “Listen.”
https://youtu.be/KbuPdt2vY0c
I have an extensive stereo system and very high end CD/DVD and vinyl players. I have often noted the very different sounds of vinyl and CD even on products that came from similar remastering. But lately it’s gotten much worse, I notice that the latest rock remasters especially and also many classical reissues tend to emphasize a kind of artificial clarity over atmosphere, ambience, and reproducing the players against a natural background. The result is a flat but very lively and clear sound that sounds artificial on a good stereo but is “clearer” on youtube or compressed systems or over the car stereo. My grown son’s friends like to come listen to their music on my stereo to compare different masterings and to listen to CD and vinyl.
Maybe this was always true that multimiking led to a flatter sound, but it’s almost as if recording professionals have developed different tastes today. In contrast, the earliest recorded great rock from the 1960s and 1970s were produced by people who had to deal with analog constraints and often had trained on recording live players (esp. classical or jazz) that all played together in the same room. So even when rock moved to experimentation with Pet Sounds or Sgt. Peppers or 1970s multi-miking, they were working against a base of live sound. That seems to have died with the all digital generation.
The short of it is that I can listen more freely on older recordings and especially on the original vinyl LPs.
This may be nit-pickery but Spotify doesn’t use MP3, it uses a much better codec (Vorbis) which is much more “transparent”. At its high-quality setting (read: 320kbps), it is indistinguishable in clinical settings from the ideal, uncompressed audio by most people… And I doubt you are either listening in a clinical environment (high tech equipment, acoustics accounted for, etc) or are particularly far from the median listener.
In short – ensure the “quality” setting is high and close your eyes and listen again, now knowing that nocebo was the downfall last time.
Sounds rich and vibrant, doesn’t it?
“At its high-quality setting (read: 320kbps), it is indistinguishable in clinical settings from the ideal, uncompressed audio by most people”
Yep – would love to see the results of a blind taste test between digital vs. analog.
I’m guessing that analog is way overrated.
Thanks for the tip. I set it at its highest quality, put on headphones and still did not get the “washing over my head” feeling. I used to get that listening in the car, so it does not take a high-quality sound system. Maybe my ears have changed, but otherwise it’s the digitization.
Unfortunately, not all phones and related digital devices were created equal. The quality of the DAC (digital audio converter) in that device can make a huge difference. Example: a few years ago, I did a Samsung Galaxy vs. iPhone comparison. The results weren’t even close…iPhone by a long shot (and I’m sure that there are probably even better devices out there). I sold the Samsung immediately. Also, if the audio quality is super important to you, consider spending the money on something like the Sony XM4s. I compared these to the best from Bose, Beats and Apple (yuck!) and those results weren’t close either.
https://www.amazon.com/Sony-WH-1000XM4-Canceling-Headphones-phone-call/dp/B0863TXGM3
WWJMD?
What would Jim Manzi do?
Pretty sure he would go the blind taste test route. That’s the most objective and easily verifiable path. Think of it as a wine tasting, but for audio formats.
Ironically, this is probably the blog that first introduced me to his ideas, yet the host seems reluctant to give it a go.
I would give a listen to “When the Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin and see where you land.
https://youtu.be/uwiTs60VoTM
I’d be curious what you think of the same exercise with Simon and Garfunkel. I did it and I also thought something was off, but I’d prefer to read someone else’s opinion, since I lost a lot of hearing ability in an incident.
I also think that there is something to one variant of the weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, in that it helps to have been familiarized by some direct exposure with the ‘technical’ jargon for precise experiences and sense qualia related to certain activities.
Once you have those terms and conceptual categories, it helps a lot in terms of identifying and assessing those otherwise ineffable sensations you know you are having but can’t quite put your finger on because it can’t come off the tip of your tongue unless you already have a word for it.
Are the other “links in the chain” the same? There is a known “warmth” to analog, but there is no such thing as audible “digitisation” in modern digital equipment.
A nice set of headphones mixed with the HQ setting (and ideally a good amp or DAC, though modern smartphones do well enough here) should be perfectly fine.
PS if you have it, remove Bluetooth from the chain if you’re dissatisfied and see if that helps.
“It’s like the difference between skimming through Internet writing and sticking with a book. I fear we are losing the capacity for the latter.”
Compulsive internet surfing really can interrupt reading a book. Even going sans social media is not a full solution. Jotting down questions, thoughts, and items sparking curiosity and saving them for an hour or two per day reserved for internet interaction, and having internet-free days seems to help.