Too Many Choices

Seth Fischer bio ↓  ·  March 14th, 2010  ·  filed under books

“I feel like an alcoholic pushed into a permanently stocked bar, and I can’t even taste the merlot because I’m trying to down a tequila and sip a martini at the same time. I’m dying to return to the mono-media of paper and glue. But I’m just not sure that I’m strong enough to resist the lure of that Dickens in my pocket; the new Jim Crace short story nestling in that mega-zine; the stream of Pepys updates scrolling down my screen.”

Over at The Guardian Books Blog, Molly Flatt points to a new Stanford study and a TED talk by Barry Schwarz that show the downside of all the choices technology and modern society have given us. She calls it “always-something-better-out-there syndrome,” and she wonders if it’s killing the joy of reading.

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Seth Fischer's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Swink, PankGuernica, Monkeybicycle, Gertrude, and elsewhere. He's Sunday Editor at The Rumpus and founding editor of The Splinter Generation and webscribbler.net. He also does writing consultation. Reach him at seth.fischer (at) gmail.com or @sethfischer. More from this author →

One Response to “Too Many Choices”

  1. Marilyn Wise Says:

    At home I only have dial-up, which keeps me off the internet on weekends, so I can not only read but write. I don’t have a crackberry, either.

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