Oh, but we’re very, very busy zombies. We’re reading e-mail… tweeting and retweeting…downloading apps..uploading photos…updating our status and reading our news feeds…

You know what we’re not doing? We’re not thinking. We’re processing. There’s a difference.

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catbird said: I agree with this, and it reminds me of my worry about the iPad— what Apple has launched is a device solely for consuming, with “creating” thrown right out the window. And my guess is that even typing something longer than, say, a text-message on it is a huge pain in the ass. I mean, what are you supposed to do, lay it flat on your lap, pull your elbows back then gnarl your hands into claws? That right there has gotta be strong impetus to stop “interacting” on the web and just fall back to “clicking on shit.”

I found this opinion a bit surprising, especially coming from Ryan Catbird. Or perhaps just the tone. Regardless, it’s the latest of a few pieces I’ve seen out there that single out the iPad or any other number of devices or services as responsible for dumbing us down; the linked article by Newsweek’s Dan “Fake Steve Jobs” Lyons is referring to none other than Barack Obama’s calling out the information age in a commencement speech last weekend.

Of course, aiming for the convenient soundbite or the latest fad is as much contributing to the problem of information noise as it is attempting to solve it. The iPad gets criticized time and again for being a device built solely for consuming, but I’ve already created vastly more content on my iPad than I ever will on that static, creaking piece of furniture that’s been in every living room in the world for 60 years. Twitter is easily labeled as a distraction, but nearly every new friend (and let’s not forget that wonderful, beautiful woman who makes me a better man every day) I’ve made in the past three years has started there.

Wrangling the staggering amount of information that is exponentially piling up around us may well be the great challenge of our generation, certainly for those of us who do this for a living. It’s a challenge I’d rather face.