In this article from the current issue of The Atlantic, the author wonders if Google is making us stupid BECAUSE web reading leads to quick reading, skimming, jumping from link to link, making our minds less able to read long stretches of print---i.e. less able to read books.
This phenomenon is not just psychological: it is equally neurological as our brain circuits are rerouted.
"My mind isn't going---so far as I can tell---but it's changing. I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in tghe narrative or the turns of the argument, and I'd spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That's rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration oftens starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle."
It's the Web that is causing this. Though the Web is a marvelous thing, here we have a huge negative side-effect.
The shape of the neural networks inside our brains are changing, and not for the better.
More later from this article on this subject.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Scott McClellan - What Happened
There is nothing new or earth-shaking in this book, and it is not a great reading experience, yet reading the book is worthwhile.
Bush misled the country into Iraq. We all know that. McClellan says Bush's purpose was to turn Iraq into a Western style democracy in order to shake up and influence the Middle East. But Bush couldn't say this going in so we went through the WMD/Hussein is a threat to us routine. This misdirection is the source of Bush's Iraq troubles.
The Vice-President was involved in the leaking of the CIA agent Valerie Plame. McClellan was lied to by the White House staff in this matter. This was McClellan's tipping point. The Valerie Pflame thing is what led to the writing of this book.
But here is the thing. I see this book as a DEFENSE of George W. Bush. Through it all, McClellan still seems to say that Bush is a fine fellow. The author goes as far as he can to exonerate Bush for the folly of Iraq and for the Valerie Pflame incident. This is the really curious thing about this book.
Bush misled the country into Iraq. We all know that. McClellan says Bush's purpose was to turn Iraq into a Western style democracy in order to shake up and influence the Middle East. But Bush couldn't say this going in so we went through the WMD/Hussein is a threat to us routine. This misdirection is the source of Bush's Iraq troubles.
The Vice-President was involved in the leaking of the CIA agent Valerie Plame. McClellan was lied to by the White House staff in this matter. This was McClellan's tipping point. The Valerie Pflame thing is what led to the writing of this book.
But here is the thing. I see this book as a DEFENSE of George W. Bush. Through it all, McClellan still seems to say that Bush is a fine fellow. The author goes as far as he can to exonerate Bush for the folly of Iraq and for the Valerie Pflame incident. This is the really curious thing about this book.
Friday, June 20, 2008
This Month in Books
THIS MONTH IN BOOKS
June 3, 1964 T. S. Eliot writes to Groucho Marx: “The picture of you in the newspaper saying that, amongst other reasons, you have come to London to see me has greatly enhanced my credit line in the neighborhood , and particularly with the greengrocer across the street.”
June 5, 1900 Stephen Crane (The Red Badge of Courage), 28, dies in a sanitarium in Badenweiler, Germany, of tuberculosis, compounded by malarial fever caught while he was covering the Spanish-American War in Cuba.
June 10, 1928 Artist and author of children’s books, Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) is born in Brooklyn, New York.
June 17, 1917 Gwendolyn Brooks is born in Topeka, Kansas. A poet and novelist, Brooks will become the first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize, in 1950, for Annie Allen.
June 22, 1913 Amy Lowell gives an “Imagist” dinner party attended, among others, by Ford Madox Ford (author of 81 books—32 of them novels), who says he has no idea what the word means and suspects no one else does either..
June 24, 1842 Cynical author, Ambrose Bierce (The Devil’s Dictionary) is born in Meigs County, Ohio. Jack London will say: “Bierce would bury his best friend with a sigh of relief, and express satisfaction that he was done with him.”
June 26, 1892 Novelist Pearl S. Buck, winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature, is born in Hillsboro, West Virginia. A few months later, her missionary parents return to China, which will remain her home until 1933.
June 27, 1880 Helen Keller is born in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Deaf, mute and blind from the age of 19 months due to scarlet fever, will write fluently about her life: The World I Live In and The Song of the Stone Wall.
June 30, 1857 Charles Dickens gives the first public reading from his works—A Christmas Carol—at St. Martin’s Hall, London.
June 3, 1964 T. S. Eliot writes to Groucho Marx: “The picture of you in the newspaper saying that, amongst other reasons, you have come to London to see me has greatly enhanced my credit line in the neighborhood , and particularly with the greengrocer across the street.”
June 5, 1900 Stephen Crane (The Red Badge of Courage), 28, dies in a sanitarium in Badenweiler, Germany, of tuberculosis, compounded by malarial fever caught while he was covering the Spanish-American War in Cuba.
June 10, 1928 Artist and author of children’s books, Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) is born in Brooklyn, New York.
June 17, 1917 Gwendolyn Brooks is born in Topeka, Kansas. A poet and novelist, Brooks will become the first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize, in 1950, for Annie Allen.
June 22, 1913 Amy Lowell gives an “Imagist” dinner party attended, among others, by Ford Madox Ford (author of 81 books—32 of them novels), who says he has no idea what the word means and suspects no one else does either..
June 24, 1842 Cynical author, Ambrose Bierce (The Devil’s Dictionary) is born in Meigs County, Ohio. Jack London will say: “Bierce would bury his best friend with a sigh of relief, and express satisfaction that he was done with him.”
June 26, 1892 Novelist Pearl S. Buck, winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature, is born in Hillsboro, West Virginia. A few months later, her missionary parents return to China, which will remain her home until 1933.
June 27, 1880 Helen Keller is born in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Deaf, mute and blind from the age of 19 months due to scarlet fever, will write fluently about her life: The World I Live In and The Song of the Stone Wall.
June 30, 1857 Charles Dickens gives the first public reading from his works—A Christmas Carol—at St. Martin’s Hall, London.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
e-books
Are we spell-bound by e-books?
Story Highlights:
Kindle e-book reading device is hyped for pairing with Amazon, cellular wireless
Electronic paper technology allows for easy-viewing, low-power display
Main current drawback is paucity of e-books compared with print editions
(CNN) -- Imagine a magic scroll, one that contains a myriad of stories and tells you a different one every night. One that fetches you the morning news, generates customized crossword-puzzles, keeps an eye on your favorite authors and an ear on the local grapevine. Imagine a living, breathing kiosk of brain-candy and a library of literature that's easy to read and rolls right up into the palm of your hand.
The Kindle belongs to the new generation of e-book reading devices that use Electronic Paper Display.
Before jumping to the K-word, keep in mind the magic. Because while the concept is there, the Kindle is not -- yet. But as far as wireless dedicated e-book reading devices go, it's a promising start.
"Books are the last bastion of analog," Amazon founder Jeff Bezos declared a few days before the Kindle's release on November 19, 2007.
Indeed, sensations such as cracking open a brand-new hardcover or fondling the dog-eared corners of a favorite paperback in a second-hand bookshop die hard. But then, so do trees.
In response to the lingering fetish for the printed page, Bezos sighed: "I'm sure people loved their horses too, but you're not going to keep riding a horse to work."
Amazon's Kindle sold out on the day of its release in less than six hours.
Given its native pairing with Amazon.com on the mainstream market, the Kindle has not resisted comparison with Apple iTunes and the now ubiquitous iPod.
Asked at the Macworld Expo in January 2008 what he thought of the Kindle, Apple founder Steve Jobs scornfully replied: "It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is; the fact is that people don't read anymore."
Ironically, just as the minority of Apple computer owners are rarely less than Mac evangelists, so a minority of amateur bookworms are rarely less than avid readers -- who will read whenever, wherever, however.
Disappearing books
"When you're reading a book," says Kindle spokesman Andrew Herdener, "you forget that it's a container made of up paper, glue, stitching, cardboard, etc -- You get lost in the author's world, and the book disappears.
"We tried to replicate this same feature -- to make Kindle disappear. That's why we used e-Ink and made it wireless, so you don't even notice it's a device."
The Kindle (as in the sparkling ignition of knowledge) was conceived with overtly bookish analogies, from its paperback size and electronic "paper" display to the librarian-monikered Whispernet (based on mobile-phone carrier Sprint's EVDO broadband service) used to beam content into the box.
Like other dedicated e-reader devices, the Kindle focuses on optimizing text display (featuring adjustable font size) and managing contextual references, such as a built-in dictionary, live Wikipedia access and an "experimental" browser that reads only text -- presumably, for less audio-visual distraction.
You can pounce on newly purchased e-books in less than a minute, and subscribe to newspapers, magazines and blogs (in 4-level grayscale), which are automatically refreshed, as long as the internal modem is turned on. You can also send it your own PDF, text or image documents, and even audio files, to "kindle" and read.
But its free-access, unlimited Whispernet capability is what distinguishes the much-hyped Kindle from other e-readers currently available on the market -- which rely on either synching to a computer or WiFi access to the Internet -- making it a standalone, purpose-built, almost magic book.
Not quite magic
The Kindle itself isn't quite magic for three main reasons -- two of which apply to any e-reading device, and all of which can be resolved over time.
Firstly, because of its exclusive partnership with Sprint, it only works to its full wireless potential within the U.S., thus alienating would-be fans in the rest of the world.
Secondly, because these devices focus on text, readers are limited to text-only, grayscale versions of otherwise colorful and lively newspaper, magazine and blog pages that are accessible for free on the Web.
Thirdly, and most significantly, there still aren't enough e-books available to meet the demand. And unlike with MP3s, you can't easily rip your own books into a readable e-format.
Amazon may boast the largest proprietary e-library with 126,994 Kindle books listed on its Web site, but one of the outstanding complaints from e-readers who have purchased any dedicated device is not finding the e-books they want.
Publishing more e-content
Fortunately, some publishers are listening.
Just last week, Simon & Schuster announced 5,000 new titles to be made available for the Kindle in 2008, primarily adult and children's fiction and nonfiction. Apparently, e-publishing pays.
"E-book sales are still a small, but fast-growing segment of our overall revenue," says Simon & Schuster's Adam Rothberg.
"In 2007 we experienced a 40 percent growth over 2006. If current trends for 2008 hold, we expect that we will double or better that growth."
Meanwhile, ecologically responsible Random House, also known for pioneering a comprehensive collection of audio books, currently offers e-books in four dedicated formats, in addition to a selection of Kindled titles.
It has also launched digital initiatives such as iFodors, making travel information and maps downloadable for PDA, online pay-per-page-view and individual chapter sales.
Of course, e-publishing also saves trees -- not to mention the time and costs of manufacturing paper, printing, shipping and handling.
Science-fiction author Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" was published simultaneously in print by Tor and electronically on the Internet in 2003. Three years and six printings later, more than 700,000 copies of the book had been downloaded from his site.
"The book's been translated into more languages than I can keep track of, key concepts from it have been adopted for software projects, and there are two competing fan audio adaptations online," Doctorow writes in Forbes.
"Most people who download the book don't end up buying it, but they wouldn't have bought it in any event, so I haven't lost any sales, I've just won an audience. (...) In an age of online friendship, e-books trump dead trees for word-of-mouth."
And if any doubts still arise about free online access spurring paper book sales, just ask J.K. Rowling how successful she thinks the print version of the Harry Potter Lexicon will be.
No more twitchy little screens
Long before the success of "Brokeback Mountain," Fiction Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx infamously told the New York Times in 1994: "Nobody is going to sit down and read a novel on a twitchy little screen. Ever."
Today, no less than seven of her authored books are available in Kindle edition from Amazon.
Proulx was partly right. As an increasing number of people read digitized novels, the screens on which they read them are becoming much less twitchy.
The new generation of e-book reader devices uses Electronic Ink, instead of LCD, to make ultra-flat, low-power electrophoretic displays that are easy on the eyes and look roughly like a super high-resolution etch-a-sketch.
The first dedicated e-book device to integrate this technology was Sony's LIBRIe, which was introduced to the Japanese market in 2004.
A full two years later, the English-version Sony Reader was launched in the U.S. in September 2006. Its current PRS-505 edition, released in October 2007 with 8-level grayscale and now selling for $299, is the closest rival to Amazon's $349 Kindle.
iRex Technologies' higher-end (and much pricier $699) iLiad, launched in July 2006 with WiFi access, pushes its electronic-paper display to 16 levels of gray and allows input via stylus on a A5-size touch screen, so it can actually be used like a paper notebook.
Earlier this year, Polymer Vision announced its combination mobile-phone/e-reader baptized Readius, featuring a flexible 5-inch, 16-grayscale electronic-paper display that rolls up into a handy 115x57x21 millimeters in 115 grams.
Qualcomm's mirasol technology, still in development, uses biomimetics to engineer low-power, flat-panel, color-rich displays viewable in any lighting condition, based on butterfly wings.
Slowly but surely, we're getting closer to the magic.
Silicon Valley-based user-interface engineer Darryl Chin, 31, has been using an iLiad for the past year, but now has his eye on the Kindle.
His wish list for improvement, however, is noteworthy: "Different screen-size choices, both bigger and smaller. Faster refresh rates. A well-thought-out user interface (both menu systems and button layouts). A smaller keyboard, or slide-out/removable, or even virtual (with touch sensitivity), so it's almost all screen."
"The main thing," he continues, "and seemingly always will be with e-books, is content. Give me all the books I want. Like CDs to MP3s, give me everything I can get physically, digitally."
E-book vs. paper book?
Stepping back from the fray, Rita Toews, author of several e-books and founder of the annual "Read an E-book Week" in March, dismisses the false competition between e-books and paper books.
"E-books are great for people who travel a lot on business, for vacationers, or for people with limited space," she says. "They are also the perfect application for material that changes on a continual basis."
"Print books, on the other hand, have their place. Nothing can replace a beautiful art book, or a book of photography. E-books are simply a different format for something we've had for hundreds of years. When penny dreadfuls were introduced in the 1800s they were scoffed at, as were paperback novels in the 1930s."
Also in the 1930s, as farmers were being signed up for rural electrification, one of the most common responses was: "Why do we need electricity? We have lanterns!"
Let there be light, and give us our magic scrolls.
Story Highlights:
Kindle e-book reading device is hyped for pairing with Amazon, cellular wireless
Electronic paper technology allows for easy-viewing, low-power display
Main current drawback is paucity of e-books compared with print editions
(CNN) -- Imagine a magic scroll, one that contains a myriad of stories and tells you a different one every night. One that fetches you the morning news, generates customized crossword-puzzles, keeps an eye on your favorite authors and an ear on the local grapevine. Imagine a living, breathing kiosk of brain-candy and a library of literature that's easy to read and rolls right up into the palm of your hand.
The Kindle belongs to the new generation of e-book reading devices that use Electronic Paper Display.
Before jumping to the K-word, keep in mind the magic. Because while the concept is there, the Kindle is not -- yet. But as far as wireless dedicated e-book reading devices go, it's a promising start.
"Books are the last bastion of analog," Amazon founder Jeff Bezos declared a few days before the Kindle's release on November 19, 2007.
Indeed, sensations such as cracking open a brand-new hardcover or fondling the dog-eared corners of a favorite paperback in a second-hand bookshop die hard. But then, so do trees.
In response to the lingering fetish for the printed page, Bezos sighed: "I'm sure people loved their horses too, but you're not going to keep riding a horse to work."
Amazon's Kindle sold out on the day of its release in less than six hours.
Given its native pairing with Amazon.com on the mainstream market, the Kindle has not resisted comparison with Apple iTunes and the now ubiquitous iPod.
Asked at the Macworld Expo in January 2008 what he thought of the Kindle, Apple founder Steve Jobs scornfully replied: "It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is; the fact is that people don't read anymore."
Ironically, just as the minority of Apple computer owners are rarely less than Mac evangelists, so a minority of amateur bookworms are rarely less than avid readers -- who will read whenever, wherever, however.
Disappearing books
"When you're reading a book," says Kindle spokesman Andrew Herdener, "you forget that it's a container made of up paper, glue, stitching, cardboard, etc -- You get lost in the author's world, and the book disappears.
"We tried to replicate this same feature -- to make Kindle disappear. That's why we used e-Ink and made it wireless, so you don't even notice it's a device."
The Kindle (as in the sparkling ignition of knowledge) was conceived with overtly bookish analogies, from its paperback size and electronic "paper" display to the librarian-monikered Whispernet (based on mobile-phone carrier Sprint's EVDO broadband service) used to beam content into the box.
Like other dedicated e-reader devices, the Kindle focuses on optimizing text display (featuring adjustable font size) and managing contextual references, such as a built-in dictionary, live Wikipedia access and an "experimental" browser that reads only text -- presumably, for less audio-visual distraction.
You can pounce on newly purchased e-books in less than a minute, and subscribe to newspapers, magazines and blogs (in 4-level grayscale), which are automatically refreshed, as long as the internal modem is turned on. You can also send it your own PDF, text or image documents, and even audio files, to "kindle" and read.
But its free-access, unlimited Whispernet capability is what distinguishes the much-hyped Kindle from other e-readers currently available on the market -- which rely on either synching to a computer or WiFi access to the Internet -- making it a standalone, purpose-built, almost magic book.
Not quite magic
The Kindle itself isn't quite magic for three main reasons -- two of which apply to any e-reading device, and all of which can be resolved over time.
Firstly, because of its exclusive partnership with Sprint, it only works to its full wireless potential within the U.S., thus alienating would-be fans in the rest of the world.
Secondly, because these devices focus on text, readers are limited to text-only, grayscale versions of otherwise colorful and lively newspaper, magazine and blog pages that are accessible for free on the Web.
Thirdly, and most significantly, there still aren't enough e-books available to meet the demand. And unlike with MP3s, you can't easily rip your own books into a readable e-format.
Amazon may boast the largest proprietary e-library with 126,994 Kindle books listed on its Web site, but one of the outstanding complaints from e-readers who have purchased any dedicated device is not finding the e-books they want.
Publishing more e-content
Fortunately, some publishers are listening.
Just last week, Simon & Schuster announced 5,000 new titles to be made available for the Kindle in 2008, primarily adult and children's fiction and nonfiction. Apparently, e-publishing pays.
"E-book sales are still a small, but fast-growing segment of our overall revenue," says Simon & Schuster's Adam Rothberg.
"In 2007 we experienced a 40 percent growth over 2006. If current trends for 2008 hold, we expect that we will double or better that growth."
Meanwhile, ecologically responsible Random House, also known for pioneering a comprehensive collection of audio books, currently offers e-books in four dedicated formats, in addition to a selection of Kindled titles.
It has also launched digital initiatives such as iFodors, making travel information and maps downloadable for PDA, online pay-per-page-view and individual chapter sales.
Of course, e-publishing also saves trees -- not to mention the time and costs of manufacturing paper, printing, shipping and handling.
Science-fiction author Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" was published simultaneously in print by Tor and electronically on the Internet in 2003. Three years and six printings later, more than 700,000 copies of the book had been downloaded from his site.
"The book's been translated into more languages than I can keep track of, key concepts from it have been adopted for software projects, and there are two competing fan audio adaptations online," Doctorow writes in Forbes.
"Most people who download the book don't end up buying it, but they wouldn't have bought it in any event, so I haven't lost any sales, I've just won an audience. (...) In an age of online friendship, e-books trump dead trees for word-of-mouth."
And if any doubts still arise about free online access spurring paper book sales, just ask J.K. Rowling how successful she thinks the print version of the Harry Potter Lexicon will be.
No more twitchy little screens
Long before the success of "Brokeback Mountain," Fiction Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx infamously told the New York Times in 1994: "Nobody is going to sit down and read a novel on a twitchy little screen. Ever."
Today, no less than seven of her authored books are available in Kindle edition from Amazon.
Proulx was partly right. As an increasing number of people read digitized novels, the screens on which they read them are becoming much less twitchy.
The new generation of e-book reader devices uses Electronic Ink, instead of LCD, to make ultra-flat, low-power electrophoretic displays that are easy on the eyes and look roughly like a super high-resolution etch-a-sketch.
The first dedicated e-book device to integrate this technology was Sony's LIBRIe, which was introduced to the Japanese market in 2004.
A full two years later, the English-version Sony Reader was launched in the U.S. in September 2006. Its current PRS-505 edition, released in October 2007 with 8-level grayscale and now selling for $299, is the closest rival to Amazon's $349 Kindle.
iRex Technologies' higher-end (and much pricier $699) iLiad, launched in July 2006 with WiFi access, pushes its electronic-paper display to 16 levels of gray and allows input via stylus on a A5-size touch screen, so it can actually be used like a paper notebook.
Earlier this year, Polymer Vision announced its combination mobile-phone/e-reader baptized Readius, featuring a flexible 5-inch, 16-grayscale electronic-paper display that rolls up into a handy 115x57x21 millimeters in 115 grams.
Qualcomm's mirasol technology, still in development, uses biomimetics to engineer low-power, flat-panel, color-rich displays viewable in any lighting condition, based on butterfly wings.
Slowly but surely, we're getting closer to the magic.
Silicon Valley-based user-interface engineer Darryl Chin, 31, has been using an iLiad for the past year, but now has his eye on the Kindle.
His wish list for improvement, however, is noteworthy: "Different screen-size choices, both bigger and smaller. Faster refresh rates. A well-thought-out user interface (both menu systems and button layouts). A smaller keyboard, or slide-out/removable, or even virtual (with touch sensitivity), so it's almost all screen."
"The main thing," he continues, "and seemingly always will be with e-books, is content. Give me all the books I want. Like CDs to MP3s, give me everything I can get physically, digitally."
E-book vs. paper book?
Stepping back from the fray, Rita Toews, author of several e-books and founder of the annual "Read an E-book Week" in March, dismisses the false competition between e-books and paper books.
"E-books are great for people who travel a lot on business, for vacationers, or for people with limited space," she says. "They are also the perfect application for material that changes on a continual basis."
"Print books, on the other hand, have their place. Nothing can replace a beautiful art book, or a book of photography. E-books are simply a different format for something we've had for hundreds of years. When penny dreadfuls were introduced in the 1800s they were scoffed at, as were paperback novels in the 1930s."
Also in the 1930s, as farmers were being signed up for rural electrification, one of the most common responses was: "Why do we need electricity? We have lanterns!"
Let there be light, and give us our magic scrolls.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Mark Bauerlein - The Dumbest Generation
Ever since NBC political commentator Tom Brokaw published a book several years ago called The Greatest Generation, this term has entered common conversation along with variations. Last year I read a book called The Greater Generation. Its thesis was that the Boomer Generation, that generation of which I am a member that was born in the years after World War 11, was greater than the greatest generation which, in Brokaw's analysis, was the generation that fought and won that world war which defeated Nazi totalitarianism.
Here is this author, an English professor at Emory University, calling the current generation, loosely called the Millenials, those born in 1980 and thereafter, the Dumbest Generation.
His thesis is that this generation does not read books, has little respect for the printed word, and spends its time on the Web, not reading substantive material, but spending their time with email and social networking sites like Facebook.
Furthermore, he goes into detail asserting that Web reading, with its emphasis on short snippets and conciseness, works against detailed and sustained confrontation with Words, as opposed to graphics.
He quotes a research study which talks about how people peruse web sites, how their eyes peruse the site, the point being that the norm is to scan and survey superficially rather give into sustained interaction to words and complete sentences.
The author would say that fewer and fewer people of this age group will spend the time necessary to reading, for example, Faulkner because they cannot devote to a Faulkner the necessary time and concentration.
In short, web browsing and the way people read off the web, militates against reading books.
By "dumbest" the author does not mean unintelligent. He thinks this generation is as intelligent as any past generation. What he means is that this Millenial generation is the least informed---they lack the general knowledge of past generations. Furthermore, this generation does not value knowledge as much as previous generations, or so the author asserts.
They are the least informed because they do not ready books, do not value the printed word, and their web browsing is mainly for social purposes and not to learn new and valuable things.
I do not know if the author is correct in saying that this is the least informed generation. I do think he is correct is saying that web reading is different than sustained print reading, and web or screen reading with the inevitable skimming with the eyes jumping all over the place retards the ability to read long texts like novels.
More later on this book and topic.
Here is this author, an English professor at Emory University, calling the current generation, loosely called the Millenials, those born in 1980 and thereafter, the Dumbest Generation.
His thesis is that this generation does not read books, has little respect for the printed word, and spends its time on the Web, not reading substantive material, but spending their time with email and social networking sites like Facebook.
Furthermore, he goes into detail asserting that Web reading, with its emphasis on short snippets and conciseness, works against detailed and sustained confrontation with Words, as opposed to graphics.
He quotes a research study which talks about how people peruse web sites, how their eyes peruse the site, the point being that the norm is to scan and survey superficially rather give into sustained interaction to words and complete sentences.
The author would say that fewer and fewer people of this age group will spend the time necessary to reading, for example, Faulkner because they cannot devote to a Faulkner the necessary time and concentration.
In short, web browsing and the way people read off the web, militates against reading books.
By "dumbest" the author does not mean unintelligent. He thinks this generation is as intelligent as any past generation. What he means is that this Millenial generation is the least informed---they lack the general knowledge of past generations. Furthermore, this generation does not value knowledge as much as previous generations, or so the author asserts.
They are the least informed because they do not ready books, do not value the printed word, and their web browsing is mainly for social purposes and not to learn new and valuable things.
I do not know if the author is correct in saying that this is the least informed generation. I do think he is correct is saying that web reading is different than sustained print reading, and web or screen reading with the inevitable skimming with the eyes jumping all over the place retards the ability to read long texts like novels.
More later on this book and topic.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Print Literacy versus Web Literacy
For those of us interested in how technology will affect print reading, the following Web page is interesting. Here is an excerpt:
Print is immensely superior to the Web in terms of speed, type and image quality, and the size of the visible space. These differences are not fundamental. We will eventually get:
Print is immensely superior to the Web in terms of speed, type and image quality, and the size of the visible space. These differences are not fundamental. We will eventually get:
- bandwidth fast enough to download a Web page as fast as one can turn the page in a newspaper
- screen resolution sharp enough to render type so crisply that reading speed from screens reaches that of paper
- huge screens the size of a newspaper spread - in fact, I think that newspaper-sized screens are about the limit where it may not make sense to make screens any larger
While computers and print (in this article, the author focuses mainly on newspapers) are certainly different, it is intriguing that the author says computers will become more like print. Here is the link to the article:
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Dealing with Books
Week Four: Organizing Books
BY LIZ SEYMOUR - HOME DEPUTY EDITOR
Every disorganized person needs a scapegoat, and on Week 4 of my crusade to clear our hopelessly overstuffed attic, I chose my husband, Bob.Having already sorted through holiday decorations, I turned to books, smug in the belief that Bob was responsible for the boxes up there filled with volumes going back to college. I love books, but I don't insist on a lifelong relationship with every one of them. Nearly three years ago, for example, our local middle school organized a used-book sale and I donated more than 200 of my own books to the cause. Bob mysteriously went missing during this exercise. So as the piles of clutter spread like ivy across our attic floor these past few years, I convinced myself that if only Bob would thin out his books, the room would be usable, or at least accessible.On the issue of books I got surprisingly little help from Caitlin Shear, the professional organizer who has signed on to be my coach and hand holder during this process. Each week she has led me through the sorting, scrapping and separation anxiety of dealing with clutter. But when it comes to books, fiction and nonfiction, she is unabashedly a keeper."I am a big books person," she admits. "I tend to get rid of everything else before I will let go of a book." She has even allowed her husband, Mike, to keep his collection of science-fiction paperbacks from the early 1980s. "I am," she says, "a total bibliophile."So am I. My father was a book editor early in his journalism career, so the New York apartment where I grew up was lined with books. They were the only things my parents allowed themselves to collect, and somehow they made room for 1,100 volumes on shelves in three of our four smallish rooms. They added warmth and color to our white-wall rental.
Trying to get rid of those books after both my parents died was a nightmare. The local branches of the New York Public Library would not take them. A few nonprofits would have accepted them, but transporting 1,100 books across the city to the drop-off sites -- in a small car, with a baby -- while the landlord pressed us to empty the apartment proved too daunting.We were faced with the depressing prospect of consigning them and the memories they held to the incinerator shaft until my friend Alicia came to the rescue. She recommended Housing Works Used Book Cafe in SoHo, where all profits go to services to help homeless people living with HIV and AIDS. They would pick up the books as long as we could pack them up. Bob heroically pulled an all-nighter while baby and I slept until the truck arrived to pick them up the next morning. Unspeakable relief.Ever since then, I have been skittish about the size of our book collection, which peaked at about 600 when we moved into our house in the District seven years ago. So for this week's exercise in space clearing, I insisted that Bob join Caitlin and me in the attic to make tough choices. We worked independently for nearly two hours; we agreed that he would not make decisions about any of my books and I would have no say about his. As I piled up my paperback novels to donate, I could hear him muttering things like: "I bought that. I've never read it. Stupid me."In the end, we donated 25 hardcover and 42 paperback books to the Kings Park branch of the Fairfax County Public Library. More than half of those were contributions from Bob, including Joe Lieberman's autobiography; nearly a dozen books on the general theme of urban sprawl, including my personal favorite: a book-length federal document from the early 1980s known as the Urban Development Annual Report; and assorted other nonfiction tomes. We're down to about 200 books, neatly piled in 10 boxes lined up against the wall. For these, we plan to get proper shelves in the living room.Caitlin says that for many people -- including herself -- books are among the most difficult things to part with. But she has two tips for anyone trying to get a handle on an overgrown collection: First, check the condition of the book. "Are the pages so brittle and yellow that you're never going to read them?" If so, she says, donate. And second, "be realistic about the format you like to read them in." Most people never re-read paperbacks they've kept for a while, especially the smaller ones, she says.Here are a few other places in the Washington region that will accept book donations: Montgomery County's Friends of the Library and Books for America.
BY LIZ SEYMOUR - HOME DEPUTY EDITOR
Every disorganized person needs a scapegoat, and on Week 4 of my crusade to clear our hopelessly overstuffed attic, I chose my husband, Bob.Having already sorted through holiday decorations, I turned to books, smug in the belief that Bob was responsible for the boxes up there filled with volumes going back to college. I love books, but I don't insist on a lifelong relationship with every one of them. Nearly three years ago, for example, our local middle school organized a used-book sale and I donated more than 200 of my own books to the cause. Bob mysteriously went missing during this exercise. So as the piles of clutter spread like ivy across our attic floor these past few years, I convinced myself that if only Bob would thin out his books, the room would be usable, or at least accessible.On the issue of books I got surprisingly little help from Caitlin Shear, the professional organizer who has signed on to be my coach and hand holder during this process. Each week she has led me through the sorting, scrapping and separation anxiety of dealing with clutter. But when it comes to books, fiction and nonfiction, she is unabashedly a keeper."I am a big books person," she admits. "I tend to get rid of everything else before I will let go of a book." She has even allowed her husband, Mike, to keep his collection of science-fiction paperbacks from the early 1980s. "I am," she says, "a total bibliophile."So am I. My father was a book editor early in his journalism career, so the New York apartment where I grew up was lined with books. They were the only things my parents allowed themselves to collect, and somehow they made room for 1,100 volumes on shelves in three of our four smallish rooms. They added warmth and color to our white-wall rental.
Trying to get rid of those books after both my parents died was a nightmare. The local branches of the New York Public Library would not take them. A few nonprofits would have accepted them, but transporting 1,100 books across the city to the drop-off sites -- in a small car, with a baby -- while the landlord pressed us to empty the apartment proved too daunting.We were faced with the depressing prospect of consigning them and the memories they held to the incinerator shaft until my friend Alicia came to the rescue. She recommended Housing Works Used Book Cafe in SoHo, where all profits go to services to help homeless people living with HIV and AIDS. They would pick up the books as long as we could pack them up. Bob heroically pulled an all-nighter while baby and I slept until the truck arrived to pick them up the next morning. Unspeakable relief.Ever since then, I have been skittish about the size of our book collection, which peaked at about 600 when we moved into our house in the District seven years ago. So for this week's exercise in space clearing, I insisted that Bob join Caitlin and me in the attic to make tough choices. We worked independently for nearly two hours; we agreed that he would not make decisions about any of my books and I would have no say about his. As I piled up my paperback novels to donate, I could hear him muttering things like: "I bought that. I've never read it. Stupid me."In the end, we donated 25 hardcover and 42 paperback books to the Kings Park branch of the Fairfax County Public Library. More than half of those were contributions from Bob, including Joe Lieberman's autobiography; nearly a dozen books on the general theme of urban sprawl, including my personal favorite: a book-length federal document from the early 1980s known as the Urban Development Annual Report; and assorted other nonfiction tomes. We're down to about 200 books, neatly piled in 10 boxes lined up against the wall. For these, we plan to get proper shelves in the living room.Caitlin says that for many people -- including herself -- books are among the most difficult things to part with. But she has two tips for anyone trying to get a handle on an overgrown collection: First, check the condition of the book. "Are the pages so brittle and yellow that you're never going to read them?" If so, she says, donate. And second, "be realistic about the format you like to read them in." Most people never re-read paperbacks they've kept for a while, especially the smaller ones, she says.Here are a few other places in the Washington region that will accept book donations: Montgomery County's Friends of the Library and Books for America.
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