Actually, as I listened to NPR the other day, the real danger the Internet poses isn't that its destroying literary reading, but instead, it is destroying man's traditional ability to be contemplative.

While the Internet, and perhaps our modern society in general, has created a generation of people who are able to quickly absorb, sort, and analyze information, it has destroyed our ability to seriously concentrate on a single problem or concept for a length of time. I suppose you could say that we've traded away our ability to increase the depth of our knowledge for breadth instead.

The irony of his sloppy usage of the word "decimate" here is amusing.

He misses the point, this Clay Shirky.