Storytelling at Risk?

Curiously enough the MIT Media Lab has paired up with some current & former Hollywood industry people to create the Center for Future Storytelling.

David Kirkpatrick who once headed Paramount Pictures motion picture group is one of the founders of the experiment and currently the CEO of Plymouth Rock Studios, a 240 acre studio complex featuring 14 soundstages, a 10 acre backlot and the MIT Storytelling Lab that is being constructed in Plymouth, MA

The group formed out of concern that text messages, cell phones and the constant bombardment of visual chatter and changing the integrity of narrative.

Starting in 2010 MIT faculty members, grad students, interns, and those working in the worlds of films and books will gather to experiment with and study the future of digital delivery and the way innovation in the field might erode or further compromise storytelling as we know it today.

The shared goal is to keep meaning alive in 21st-century storytelling.

I was just having a conversation this morning with a friend about how the devices of our contemporary life seem to be fracturing our abilities to focus and pay attention. Odd for me to say I suppose since I have been diagnosed with ADD but I see this happening to people I know who did not exhibit symptoms previously.

It is troubling to think that our storytelling might morph into more action oriented products or perhaps highly edited work that keeps our eyes in gear. But what about our brains? Our imagination? Memory?

What do you think?