Maybe the internet will not douse our love of books yet, nor replace deep thinking/deep reading as we have feared.

Definitely the internet creates an instant mentality - short burst of reading here and there, as well as many shallow diversions…. but it may not replace deep reflection as yet in our generation.

Study: Young adults heavy library users - Yahoo! News

Young adults are the heaviest users of public libraries despite the ease with which they can access a wealth of information over the Internet from the comforts of their homes, according to a new study.

Two quotes caught my eye over the holidays:

- In starting a business, we should start small.  But in whatever we do, we should not stay small-minded.

- There are only two things we can give to our schildren. — One is roots.  the other is wings.

It is always great to visualize tomorrow.  A hundred years ago, new yOrk live on the verge of new hope, and it crystallized.

Now the prediction is not so rosy — it seems New York, and even our own world is starting to burst on the seams….  Whatever it will be , and whereever we are, it will be upto us.

As we approach 2008, there is nothing more sure than our conviction that the world is ” as we make it.”

The World of Tomorrow - New York Times

The point of such predictions was not necessarily that they were accurate but that people cared enough about the future to bother thinking about it. With that in mind, 10 knowledgeable New Yorkers, from the Nobel laureate Paul Nurse (Simon Flexner’s successor) to a 12-year-old girl named Kate, were asked to imagine the city a century from now.

Whether their visions turn out to be right or wrong, whether they are bleak or tongue-in-cheek, all are generous efforts to wonder about the lives of New Yorkers of 2108, as those New Yorkers of 1908 once wondered about ours.