In this age of technology, reading has become less of a pleasurable pass time and more of a tedious chore. There used to be a time when I was younger where I loved to go to the library and pick out brand new books to lose myself in. In the book The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr, Carr talks about how as a society we rarely sit down with a good book anymore. We read what we have to.
With the help of the internet, people can find information in a fraction of the time it took to read through a book. A simple Google search can yield millions of results in less than a second. We have adapted to skim through sentence after sentence, only searching for what we need. If what we are perusing doesn't seem to contain the information we want, we simply try another result. Search, select, skim, repeat.
We have become accustomed to reading for short periods of time, skipping from one excerpt to another, never truly taking in what we have read. Some people who used to read for enjoyment now find themselves becoming distracted and lost when having to read a paper or book. Why trudge through a time consuming read when the internet provides short and simple answers? Better yet, why read at all? With audio books, one can listen to a book while doing the dishes, walking the dog, or driving to work. AI assistants like Siri can understand what is needed and spit out a concise answer.
With so many ways to obtain information, books and reading seem to be fading into history. Will curling up with a good book become a thing of the past?
Timothy Cherpes
I personally love reading and I am always in the mood to read something new. Continuing off what you said, reading is now something many people feel is a chore or neccesary in order to accomplish something they need to,such as summer/in-school required homework. Reading for enjoyment has become a rare past time in our current society. However as you stated before there are audio books for people that want to make an effort to read but do not have the time is somewhat of an extension of reading. The internet has created bad habits in all of us by relying on its quick and easy access to information we may need at that moment. It is certainly hard for our society to suddenly try and cut out using the internet/technology when wanting information. However, if we are at least educated as Neil Postman states in Amusing Ourselves to Death, then our society can take the initative to go to the library or newstands as an alternative to break our unconcious bad habits of overusing and depending on google.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you are saying. Not many people read as their own choice and instead read when it is expected of them to do it. It's true that the internet makes it easier to find information on a specific subject instead of wasting more time on looking for the same information on the same subject through a book. Reading from a traditional book might be a thing of the past since electronic books have replaced them for being more easier to manage. Carr talks about why electronic books have a better hand than traditional books but he also talks about the cons of reading off of them. Overall, people are still reading but more from electronic books instead of from traditional books which possibly makes them a thing of the past with electronic books replacing their traces.
ReplyDeleteWe're reading more now than we ever have actually, 'nuff said. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/young-people-are-reading-more-than-you
ReplyDeleteThe article you linked was published in 2011, which is surprisingly 6 years ago already. (With the latest published study in the article done in 2010). While it might have been true that there were a better amount of young readers in those years, I have only read that reading interests are going down, not up. Sadly, I couldn't find a very recent article, but I hope this one from 2015 will suffice. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/09/decline-children-reading-pleasure-survey
DeleteI agree with your statement on how reading has become more of like a tedious chore instead of a pleasurable way to pass time. I feel that is only become, because in our society everyone is always at top speed with their busy lives. Reading to me personally has always been a favorite thing of mine to do, but I find it harder everyday to find the time. I would say maybe it's not that we do not want to read, it's just that there's not enough time in the day for our busy schedules or we’re simply lazy. It doesn't help that people invest more time in digital entertainment instead taking the time to read.
ReplyDeleteI honestly think that's an excuse we tell ourselves. You can make time or you can use the time involved in waiting and use it to read. We're definitely reading a lot more than we used to, books are far away to be extinct (Which I honestly think they'd only go extinct if humanity does). If you think about it's common sense that reading is still a fairly popular thing, after all isn't the phrase "The book was better than the movie!" Still relevant today? People probably assume it's not popular because they never see people read, but that's because you tend to read in your alone time at HOME. Which makes it way easier to read.
DeleteI would like to point out that despite the web vs. book controversy, people are inherently still reading. Whether it is on a page or a glowing screen, there are words which form sentences which form paragraphs which form statements and arguments. The basic concept of reading has not changed as we jump to this new dimension of interaction.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I cannot argue with your claim that people are being conditioned by the internet to skim through paragraphs in order to find the main point of the text. This is true; however, I feel that it would be unfair to pin the internet as the culprit of such a crime. Rather, I would argue that this behavior preexisted the internet. I myself tend to skim through the exposition of the book because I find it uninteresting. The exposition contains few important details except for the setting and establishment of the main characters. As a result of this, I typically skim through the book until I reach the beginning of the rising action. It is not the internet that has taught me to skip through information; it is my own demanding nature that forces me to find the most interesting thing to latch onto as quickly as possible. I find that the person's nature is more to blame than the voluminous sources accessible via the internet.