When it comes to the debate over the digital world's effect on our habits of thought and our engagement with the written word, AGNI editor Sven Birkerts is no newcomer to the conversation. In 1994's The Gutenberg Elegies, he identified a cluster of unsettling trends that have only intensified since that time. Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age can be viewed as a companion work, one that's no more sanguine than its predecessor about the survival of traditional reading culture.
Though he acknowledges the argument of writers like Nicholas Carr, in The Shallows, that electronic media literally are rewiring the neural pathways of our brains, Birkerts is more concerned with broader social trends, ones that he returns to repeatedly, but not repetitiously, in this collection. Citing the "preference algorithms and instant data search" of sites like Wikipedia and Pandora, he laments the "movement away from the notion of the individuated 'I' and toward a more networked, which is to say collectivized, existence." The ever-present distraction offered by our devices, in his view, competes with the "summoning of attention" that is the essence of art, and more specifically, deep reading.
Though Birkerts clearly inhabits the online world, he's proud of the fact that he's never owned a cellphone, while frankly acknowledging the problems that's created for his relationships with family and friends. But Sven Birkerts is no "cranky Luddite," in the words of one essay's title. Rather, he's a wise and humane guide, offering a gentle restraining hand as we hurtle into the electronic future. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer