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

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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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday June 15 2014, @05:20PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 15 2014, @05:20PM (#55625) Journal

    My empirical study (i.e., my experience) is that I don't like to read more than a page or so of text on a screen, whereas 500 pages in a book isn't daunting. OTOH, I'm talking about computer, not an e-book reader. I understand that those are a very different experience, though I've never got into the habit of using one. (Most of the books I read aren't available as e-books, and I'd worry about permanence. Many of my books are over a decade old.)

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