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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.
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Is Always On Tech Destroying Our Ability To Read?
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Everything that you know is wrong, but you can be straightened out.
(Score: 2) by keplr on Sunday June 15 2014, @06:38AM
I know a lot of purists will say it doesn't count as reading, and technically I suppose they're right, but I really love audiobooks. Life is full of blocks of time when you are occupied by some task that requires physical movement or attention but not a full level of mental engagement. I'm on the treadmill about an hour every day and that's my main reading time. There's plenty of time walking around at work when I can get some "reading" done, too.
Selection has gotten much better in recent years. It used to be that the audio version came out months or years later, and even then it was the abridged version. Now, often the unabridged audiobook will be released around the same time as the text version. The quality of narrators has gone up to, IMO.
So audiobooks are one example of technology increasing the amount of "reading" I can do, and it turns otherwise unproductive time into useful and entertaining experiences.
I don't respond to ACs.
(Score: 2) by lx on Sunday June 15 2014, @02:58PM
How do you do it? My mind tends to wander when listening to audiobooks so I'm constantly rewinding to keep following the plot. Something that rarely happens to me when reading.