Twilight of the books?

[mdlbear]

From this post by technoshaman comes a link to a New Yorker article titled "Twilight of the Books" that asks "What will life be like if people stop reading?"

Like technoshaman and unlike Caleb Crain, the article's author, I'm rather more optimistic. I think that, with the rise of the web, we're well on our way out of the decline of literacy caused by television. Of course Crain's measure of literacy, reading "a work of creative literature", may well continue to decline. I know I don't read nearly as many novels as I once did. But I think nothing of devouring a 100-page legal document over on Groklaw -- it doesn't look nearly that big when it's all in one big, scrollable, HTML page. And my kids happily spend their bookstore gift cards on rollplaying game books. And read them.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

OK. cadhla posted a story a day for the entirety of Advent, and posts other such from time to time. raine_wynd posts the occasional fic as well. I have an entire novel I need to get 'round to reading from annathepiper. I've got the entire Honorverse CD resident on my hard drive, and I dive in there from time to time.

OK, so I may not devour quite as much fiction as I once used to. But there is definitely literature to be had online, anything from the Gutenberg Project to Hello Kitty drabble, and I for one probably am not nearly the most avid reader thereof. And what I'm leaving behind in "literature", I'm more than making up for keeping up with my world and the people in it. I spend a good 60-70 hours a week behind a keyboard, and if a majority (not a vast one, but a simple 51%) of that isn't spent reading English, not code, I'd be surprised.

(I remember considering going to work for the computer center and finishing my degree by bits and pieces once. Dad's remark was, "He probably spends 40 hours a week on the computer already, this won't hurt..." He was right. Even being in school, my online time added up to 45-50 hours a week. 'course, a lot more of it was spent coding then, but still. A heck of a lot of Usenet passed beneath my cursor.)

'course, then there's also the time spent *writing*... no, I don't write fic, but it's still a creative exercise for me to put together a good article...

So. Not literate? moi? Shirley, he jests.

(Gripping hand, I gotta wonder if he's none of those wags that think that Science Fiction isn't real literature... I'd point him at Fahrenheit 451 and see if he still wants to make that claim, or if he wants to start a fire...

[harmonyheifer.livejournal.com]

I hear all the time that the younger generation doesn't read and soon no one will be reading for pleasure any more. Now I may have a slightly skewed perspective because my daughter and all her friends were either in Honors or IB but my perception is that you are either a reader or you aren't. It isn't a generational thing at all.

The best way to get your kids to read is to read to them daily. Read to them after they can read for themselves and have them read aloud to you. The other key to raising literate children is to limit TV while they are in school. We had a strictly enforced rule that there was no TV on school nights at our house. Homework got done, there were lots of conversations between parent and child and whoever was floating through the house. The best side-effect of limiting my child's access to television during her childhood was that she wasn't as influenced by popular media as most kids her age were and that has turned out to be a good thing in so many ways. Too many parents use the TV as a babysitter. My daughter and son-in-law read for pleasure the same way Patrick and I do, and a good third of the boxes in our garage awaiting transport to their home in New Zealand are full of books.