'Is Google Making Us Stupid?' so screamed the article title from the screen as I was trolling for media issues. No one can ignore that question.
In the ensuing report, Nicholas Carr of The Atlantic wrote about how the effects of having the web as a lifesaver for a writer such as himself was also taking a toll on how he viewed the more traditional methods of reading and writing. The more time spent surfing on the web, the less focus he and many other peers have on reading long texts even on the web. People want more and faster access to information, and with headlines and keywords, bells and whistles all pointing in various directions, no more are people wanting to read long passages to get what they want. The effect of skimming has taken hold.
In the report, it says that the human brain is incredibly malleable so it is no surprise that the way humans read is evolving due to the new medium of the web. In fact, how everything in the media world from print to television is evolving due to the internet. I cannot begin to tell you the number of times my sixty year old director-colleague of mine complained about how fast the pace of television programs have become. All points to how viewers have evolved.
But to what extent does this evolution benefit us? Is this new way of reading really increasing our knowledge capacity? This debate is a hotly contested one especially when it comes down to the younger generation. The New York Times's exploration of this matter shows there there is still a toss up- on one hand you cannot fault the medium for enticing the younger generation. In fact, more kids read and write online than they ever did through traditional methods and it's no wonder- as Kress (1997, pp. 55-56) discusses, the web provides greater interactivity and visual enhancement through images and videos. On the other hand, experts say that real learning can only be done through real books, real reading and real writing and this is evident in test scores dropping.
Walsh (2006, p. 25) states there is a constant interaction between the reader and print-based text. Various meanings are enhanced by the reader's own knowledge and critical reading is an important part of the reader using the background knowledge to decipher and grasp the ideologies at hand. In Carr's article, he quoted Maryann Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University on the benefits of deep reading:
"The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. Deep reading is indistinguishable from deep thinking."
Sidestepping the issue of the younger generation, I'd like to think that the above is what most of us adults would like to achieve. But in this day and age, one can debate 'who has the time?' Yet, with the amount of information that is now afforded to us online, doesn't merely skimming it defeat the purpose?
It's a never-ending debate. So, what is your take on the evolution of reading?
My personal take is simple: The Luddite in me knows there is nothing like the feel of real pages between the fingers, the quiet solace one sinks into while slowly unfurling the story within. Besides, have you tried to snuggle down in bed with a laptop on a rainy day? Not too comfortable eh?
Resources:
Kress, G 1997, Page to Screen: taking literacy into the electronic era, Allen & Unwin, St. Leonards, NSW
Walsh, M 2006, 'The "textual shift": examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts', Australian journal of language and literacy, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 24-37
Online article: Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Image source: Getty Images
Singaporeans are turning on their televisions during the current recession according to a report. Sounds like good news for broadcasters and us television producers right? Well, let's just say I wouldn't hold my breath.
