In the newsroom, we used to talk about “Shelf Life.” A story about a fire has a shelf life of 24 hours. A story about the changing nature of the city has a shelf life of a decade. Today, the internet has collapsed all shelf lives into a single, frantic “Now.” We are eating information like it’s fast food—greasy, salty, and designed to be forgotten the moment it’s swallowed. We feel “informed,” but we aren’t gaining wisdom. We are just gaining anxiety. 1. The “Lindy Effect” of Reading There is a concept called the Lindy Effect, which suggests that the longer something has survived, the longer it is likely to…