The Sunday, July 27, 2008
New York Times has a terrific front-page story titled: "Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?" The story jumps inside to an entire double-truck that is the first in a series of articles called: "The Future of Reading: Digital Versus Print." The series "will look at how the Internet and other technological and social forces are changing the way people read."
If the first story is any indication, it is going to be a terrific series, very well-researched and written. Check it out!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=reading&st=cse&oref=slogin
3 comments:
This was a great find Libby, I will be following this series of articles.
I really think that nothing will replace the conscious experience of reading a book and that humans can only process a finite amount of information. Most information has little (or no) value, so it is a very practical need to marginalize and privilege specific information.
The Internet is fast and easy, it's great for finding facts but the medium does not loan itself well to topics that require sustained critical thinking and reflection. It is my opinion that print books work much better in this respect.
If there are any fans of the Showtime series "Californication," the protagonist Hank Moody sums it up like this;
"The Internet was supposed to set us free, democratize us, but all it’s really given us is Howard Dean’s aborted candidacy and (EDITED). And people don’t write anymore, they blog; instead of talking, they text; no punctuation, no grammar. LOL this and LMFAO that. You know it just seems to me that it’s just a bunch of stupid people psuedo-communicating with a bunch of other stupid people in a proto-language that resembles more what cavemen used to speak than the king’s English."
I think that the author played on an extreme very early in the article when he mentioned that no teenager will read To Kill a Mockingbird for fun. Apparently, he's not in tune with YA literature. When I was younger, I wouldn't have read Mockingbird for fun, either; instead, I read Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, the Babysitters Club, etc.
Rather than relegating reading to two groups (Internet and Classics), we need to promote reading by directing youth to books to which they can relate; books that have an interactive or online component so that they can experience the resource in different environments, etc.
I loved this article and will follow it. As a former media specialist, I worked very hard at catching those who thought reading wasn't fun. I didn't help them all but those that I did began to do better in the classroom. My 13 year old daughter was upset about moving because she wanted to make sure the library could send out the letters to tell her that the books she wanted are in. What people forget is that we are models and if those around us see us reading and liking it than others will follow.
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