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Is Always On Tech Destroying Our Ability To Read?

posted by n1 on Sunday June 15 2014, @03:39AM   
from the tl;dr dept.

Appalbarry writes:

Tim Gray, writing in the New York Reviews of Books, has a very interesting article that asks whether it has become impossible to find the uninterrupted blocks of time that are needed to read serious works of literature, and whether the change in the reading environment is also changing how books are written.

Ordinarily I ignore the "Computer Bad! Destroy Society!" arguments, but I have to say that what he describes seems all too familiar. I can't recall the last time that I actually sat down for two or three hours just to read.

I grew up spending hours each day, every day devouring books of all sorts. Is this a thing that's lost to people raised with Internet, Game Consoles, and Smartphones? Pardon me if I sound like an old fart.

• You don't need long blocks of timeYou don't need long blocks of time (Score: 3, Insightful) by gman003 on Sunday June 15 2014, @04:16AM

  by gman003 (4155) on Sunday June 15 2014, @04:16AM (#55489)

  Uninterrupted reading is great, but even short bursts are fine. I read the Silmarillion in chunks of maybe an hour. It took months, but it was just as understandable as if I had done it in one sitting.

  Also, tech has nothing to do with it. I've read for hours straight on a computer. Wikisource has a collection of Lovecraft stories - maybe they aren't classified as "Great Books", but you'd be hard-pressed to shove them in the same category as the inanity that fills most of the internet.

  I also wonder if observations like this even have to do with technology. I used to be able to read for 4-5 hours at a time, back when I was in middle school. As I kept going through school, that time shrank or got eaten up by other things. And then with work and "being an adult", that free time shrinks. But that's hardly technology's fault. I suspect people are seeing that correlation between "lack of free time to read" and "technology advancing" without realizing they're both being caused by time passing, not a direct causation. I'm sure you can still find kids who can read for ten hours a day on the weekend, if they can find a good enough book to read.

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• Re:You don't need long blocks of timeRe:You don't need long blocks of time (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday June 15 2014, @12:00PM

  by VLM (445) on Sunday June 15 2014, @12:00PM (#55573)

  "I'm sure you can still find kids who can read for ten hours a day on the weekend, if they can find a good enough book to read."

  Harry Potter wasn't all that long ago. Having read the first book, I'm not claiming its high end literature, but it was effective at getting kids into books.

  Parent

  • Re:You don't need long blocks of time(Score: 1) by My Silly Name on Sunday June 15 2014, @02:05PM

    by My Silly Name (1528) on Sunday June 15 2014, @02:05PM (#55599)

    Harry Potter wasn't all that long ago. Having read the first book, I'm not claiming its high end literature, but it was effective at getting kids into books.
    
    Kids don't need high-end literature, they just need sufficient attention span to cope with more than 140 characters of text at a time (a lesson some of our politicians might do well to emulate). I remember reading Blyton, Compton and Creasey books by torchlight under the blankets when I was a kid. Joanne Rowling has filled the same role for a more recent generation. In fact, given the sheer length of her Harry Potter books, she has done an unprecedented job of claiming kids' attention.

    Parent