“No, the Internet Has Not Killed the Printed Book. Most People Still Prefer Them,” Daniel Victor of the New York Times assures us in the title of his latest. And also invites us to ponder whether the slip in grammar might not indicate that the Internet has killed or made moribund something else: literacy. Citing a Pew Research study, he writes:
“Books line the walls on at Common Grounds, in DeKalb, Ill., in August.” Image for The New York Times by Katie Smith/Daily Chronicle, via Associated Press
Sixty-five percent of adults in the United States said they had read a printed book in the past year, the same percentage that said so in 2012. When you add in ebooks and audiobooks, the number that said they had read a book in printed or electronic format in the past 12 months rose to 73 percent, compared with 74 percent in 2012.
And adds that:
People are indeed using tablets and smartphones to read books. Thirteen percent of adults in the United States said that they used their cellphones for reading in the past year, up from 5 percent in 2011.
It might also be worthwhile to consider (taking a look at the stacks to your right) whether the quality in books that are being popularly read has undergone some kind of decline. Are books that are increasingly coming to take from in tablets and smartphones less likely to be smart books? In the hurly-burly of the here and now, it is nice that there remain nooks (no the other kind) and corners, such as The Core, reminding us of the literature that keeps us from being enslaved by the present, and teaches good writing in the meanwhile.
Read the full post at The New York Times.
2 Comments
Theresa posted on September 18, 2016 at 5:14 pm
I would perhaps like to say that we are not really cutting short on “literacy” as the author presumed but rather that we are having a new aspect on literacy and a new emphasis on how to read. Quite frankly, today is the day in which we see more people than EVER produce more literary works in the form of articles, books, magazines, etc. than the days in which books were the sole form of literature. Now that everything is online people don’t have to wait for hours and hours and submit and wait for publication to get their ideas across. Reading and the ability to have others read one’s work is then multiplied today and the literary world has become much more accessible to everyone. Reading is also more convenient when works are available online or on kindle because people can carry multiple works with them in one portable device. I quite think that one could make an argument that technology today has augmented literacy
Furthermore…are they smart books? I think people can choose to read whatever books they want whether it be in print or in their devices. I think in all ages people choose based on what they are interested in. If books seem “less smart” when you take a glance at someone’s device this may simply be because there are a greater variety of works available and some may be of a “newer” variety and people have chosen to read both classical books, informational books, and books for entertainment.
T
Cat posted on September 18, 2016 at 6:17 pm
I read strictly clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform, the way works were meant to be read.
(For the record, I prefer physical books–they’re easier on the eyes. Literally. And while perhaps the increased accessibility in self-publishing or online works results in a lot of low quality works, I would say that much of it is the same in the end. Plenty of fan-service, ill-written physical books out there too.)