In the digital age we lose the depth of our thoughts

I suggest reading this thought by Italo Calvino expressed in his Lezioni americane more than thirty years ago.

“Sometimes it seems to me that a pestilential epidemic has struck humanity in the faculty that most characterizes it, that is, the use of language that manifests itself as a loss of cognitive force … that tends to level the expression on the most generic formulas, anonymous … to extinguish every spark that sprouts from the clash of words with new circumstances”.

How does the cognitive force of thought manifest itself in our daily lives?

Through words that allow to express our ideas and emotional states. If the words are well organized in a specific language we can be understood by other people. Social networks and the increasing amount of time we dedicate to them, precisely because of the simplicity they require, decrease the expressive capacity of our thoughts, as they are forced to become simplified and superficial in order to be shared and increase our followers. The repetitiveness in time of this way of communicating will determine the reduction of the depth of our thoughts.

Salvation to this mental downsizing of human beings can only be given by studying and reading novels.

Let us reflect.

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