"Distracted" by information literacy

In my leisure time, I don't set out to read books about information literacy, although I do enjoy books that cover some related fields, such as information technology and psychology. During my most recent visit to Borders, I came across one with an intriguing title and premise: Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, by Maggie Jackson.

162 pages into it, I was surprised to find a section discussing information literacy and the experiences of college faculty as they see their students avoiding print sources and hoping to find everything that they need using only Google. While nothing about information literacy skills (or the students' lack thereof) surprised me, I was a bit surprised to find information literacy given a good treatment in a book for a general audience.

Perhaps you already share the view of CSU Vice-Chancellor Lorie Roth, who is quoted in Distracted as saying (after she had examined discarded print-outs used by students during their online searches): "As I sat there, surrounded by the detritus from the trash cans, paging through these print-outs, I tried to reconstruct what kind of thought processes these students were using. I finally arrived at the conclusion, in fact, that there was no process; that there was no logical, clear, systematic inquiry."

I'll let you know when I finish reading Distracted, because at this point, I don't know if Jackson plans to offer any advice for avoiding the "coming dark age" that she describes.