I wanted to give my take on Matt's post Wednesday about students replacing the reading of complete books in "analog" by taking snippets of data from the Web. I have been reading pieces bemoaning the decline of reading for just about as long as I have been reading. We kicked this topic around a little before Matt posted on it and I have to agree with Steve's observation that the number of people who immerse themselves in books like we do has always been very small. Reading of light material for amusement has been on the decline since the invention of the motion picture and got knocked in the head by TV. The Web is another step in that direction.
The LA Times article that forms the basis for Matt's post prominently describes students balking at large reading assignments in "analog". I can remember classmates of mine balking like that as far back as Christian Brothers High School: "Gee, Brother Leander, do you really expect us to read all that?" That was long before the invention of the Web, but as one of my classmates said, "That's why God invented Cliffs Notes." We had teachers who would buy Cliffs Notes so that they could design tests with questions on material that the Cliffs Notes summary didn't cover. These were not popular teachers.
So maybe the way to look at the Web is as an enhanced version of Cliffs Notes, and the students who really want to read (a minority) will, and those who would prefer to get out of it (the majority) will try to find ways not to. I would say there are many in my generation that are as "aliterate" as the younger generation mentioned in the LA Times - though I don't know what the percentage comparison would be.
Now, Matt works at the LSU library, sees more of the interaction of students and books than I do, and probably has more insight as to whether this is a truly different phenomenon.
Speaking of the LSU library, I heard from a reliable source, that of the eight books there, four of them haven't even been colored in yet. Can you confirm that, Matt?
4 comments:
Reid you are making it hard for a young guy like myself to build up the past as some great, sparkling time of intellectual achievement and social equality. You wouldn't believe how much history I have to ignore to maintain this fantasy!
But with my blinders off, I guess I will agree with you that reading "the whole thing" has probably always been a minority activity. I'm sure there were those who would just read the "Cliff" note (haha) version of the rock art symbology, and probably drove their shamans crazy with regret for the future of the tribe.
As for the library at LSU, we are trying to improve. We have ordered a new Tupperware bin as an expansion of our facility and hope to have 4-5 more books to place in it by 2007.
but--but,---what did the people who didn't want to "read the whole thing" do to waste time before the web, movies, and tv? burn bugs?
Let's see....A Tale of Two Cities, or flame an ant colony with a hair spray torch? Hmmm...tough choice....I know what I did in 9th grade. 10th grade Sci Fi class, quiz on 1984, we had to summarize the first couple of chapters, I remember I wrote "It was a cold day in April and the clocks were striking 13." I ended up as a scientist working at a Nat'l Lab.
When I was in 7th grade, our local newspaper did a story on my family because we annually checked out more books than anyone else in town. I recall this because my classmates badgered me without mercy for being such an obvious dork as to frequent libraries.
That was twenty years ago and I suspect some of the reflections here are right.
I doubt there is any time when my level of book reading was the norm. But...I do think that less folks are reading for enjoyment to ANY degree than in the past. I hear all the time from friends and colleagues that "They have no time to read" or "They feel like they're wasting their time." My working class father and grandparents always seemed to make time despite working longer hours. It seems now that not only aren't many people reading books, but reading is becoming socially unacceptable. Their loss.
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