America's Decline in Literary Reading: Grappling with Technology's ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

44 Internet bookselling has given me, and countless others in the same situation, access to virtually every book in print. Further, Amazon seems to lead me to great books with every visit and has sparked interest in new books that are now favorites. The fact remains, however, that the literary reading has declined across all segments of the American population despite the increased accessibility the electronic bookstore provides. So what can be done about this? Can literary reading itself somehow become integrated into modern technology, and if so would it result in more people reading? E-books, as they are called, are electronic books that can be downloaded to computers and read on a screen. Portable devices, called Ebook readers, come in a small ergonomic package about the size of a book and allow the user to download e-books and read them on an LCD screen. This allows for quick access to a multitude of e-books through online book sellers, and hundreds of these books can be stored on a single device. Pages are turned by the press of a button, and different features allow for larger font, different page orientation, and a number of other aesthetic settings. Despite these conveniences, however, e-books have experienced little success. Perhaps their poor reception can best be explained by looking at Sven Birkerts’ essay “States of Reading,” which describes how a reader can be “teased” by the material aesthetics of reading a novel: You turn the book over in your hands, you scan the sentences on the back of the jacket....Of course, this circling of the book, too, this reading around it before reading inside it, is part of the pleasure in a new book....Calvino guides his chapter to conclusion, the conclusion being, in effect, the reader’s excited haste to turn the page to begin. (101) Many, myself included, find pleasure in the physical form of the book. Examining the cover, skimming the back, and turning the pages of a good book somehow add to the experience of reading. Digital forms of reading simply do not offer this experience and hence have not become popular among readers. Reading words on an LCD screen and pressing buttons to turn virtual “pages” simply do not compare to the material, aesthetic experience of reading an actual book. Maybe this is because digital forms of literature seem to have less “substance.” We don’t conceive of them as material objects—physical manifestations of ink on paper—but as mere digital representations of words—light projected on screens. For many of us, words must be printed and therefore available to the senses to seem weighty or even “real.” Perhaps it’s important for us to feel the smoothness of the page, to hear the slight crackle of its turning, to in some cases smell the mustiness of the paper or the faint scent of ink. An actual book seems like something you can digest, the heft of the pages subconsciously feeling like something substantive to feed to your mind, the materiality of paper facilitating the very notion of reading as consumption. The very idea of reading is modified somewhat by these new technologies. Are different forms of reading, in particular reading from paper as compared to reading from an electronic device, important? Does the reading that literary scholars refer to only include reading paper books, or would they be happy if people read light produced by a screen rather than light reflecting off of paper? Personally, I think that different forms of reading don’t actually make a substantial difference and that some day electronic language will seem normative and natural to us. Indeed, our old notions of reading may become so fully rooted in a new technological context that books as we know them could become obsolete. This will not necessarily represent a shift in the literary culture but only a shift in the medium of reading, a movement from paper to the screen. I think that for many traditional readers such as Sven Birkerts, reading is automatically assumed to be something that is best accomplished with ink and paper. Reading at Risk only counted reading from printed books, which shows that the NEA too put emphasis on the physical form. It is easy to see why many readers dislike technology, since they usually believe it to be responsible for the decline in literary reading. Michael Dirda even regards the web as largely an “invention of the devil” (1). This is the attitude shared, at least to some extent, by many writers, especially those who are accustomed to old ways and are not familiar with technology. A shift towards technology, however, is inevitable. The internet has resulted in a wealth of information, and offers the possibility of a new form of electronic reading that could vastly increase the distribution of literature. Still, reading on a screen for most people in our time will never replace reading from paper. Times change and often long set cultural practices such as reading face natural resistance to the rapid advancement of technology. It is interesting to think about the shift from the spoken word to the written word, and from the written word to the printed word, as well as the roadblocks that surely accompanied those changes. When the printing press was invented, how many longed for the aesthetic value of the hand written manuscript and complained that the printed word, a reflection of the newest technology of the times, simply wasn’t the same. It is natural for people to resist change, but it is equally natural for people to eventually adjust to change and come to accept it. It’s not hard to imagine an essay 50 years from now, in which the Sven Birkerts of my generation talks about the aesthetic values of some future form of reading. Perhaps such
an author would talk about the anticipation of pressing a button to turn the page, the excitement of downloading a book from the internet, or the warm glow that is cast from a book screen. I agree with many critics who are disappointed with the decline in reading. Literary reading is a vital part of our culture. However, I find the arguments of these cultural critics somewhat limited. Since they are authors, it would be in their own self interest if everyone read and nobody used modern technology. Literary and journalistic discourses typically overlook the advantages of digital media and use it as the commonplace culprit for the decline in reading. They are eager to mark reading mediated through print as the best and right way to gain intelligence. But I believe that this shift to new forms of communication, and perhaps a shift in our culture as a whole, isn’t as bad as many make it out to be. And if reading is slow to move to an electronic form, perhaps new technology can at least be used to help give reading’s popularity a boost. As new technologies develop, I think it is important that writers embrace them as a way to popularize reading. Rather than stubbornly looking at technology as an unapproachable problem, strides should be taken to use digital media to encourage reading in our increasingly techno-oriented society. In short, I would give many technology-weary cultural critics the often heard advice of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Perhaps this wouldn’t completely fix the lack of reading in America, but in my opinion, it would certainly be a step in the right direction. � Works Cited Reading words on an LCD screen and pressing buttons to turn virtual “pages” simply do not compare to the material, aesthetic experience of reading an actual book. Maybe this is because digital forms of literature seem to have less “substance.” Birkerts, Sven. Readings. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 1999. “Do Video Games Make You Smarter?” IQTestNow. 20 Nov. 2004. . Franzen, Jonathan. How to Be Alone. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002. Gardiner, Juliet. “Reformulating the Reader: Internet Bookselling and Its Impact on the Construction of Reading Practices.” Changing English 9 (2002): 161-168. Michael Dirda, “As I Live and Read: One Book Lover’s Plea for a Literati Nation.” The Washington Post. 25 July 2004: B1. Solomon, Andrew. “The Closing of the American Book. The New York Times 10 July 2004: 17. 45
Page 1 and 2: This paper was written as a final a
Page 3: The internet is a democratic bazaar

America's Decline in Literary Reading: Grappling with Technology's ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?