I am currently obsessed with this video.
I was shown it in during a discussion of how to get the kiddies interested in reading. It’s a tough question. That Shallows guy is right: we’re dealing with brain functions that have changed, and not IMHO for the better. I pointed this out, and there was a debate about whether it was fair to say there was actual hostility towards reading.
In the course of the discussion I was also shown The 48 Laws of Power, which is basically Machiavelli’s and Sun Tzu’s greatest hits put together by an enterprising Classicist (he went on to co-author a book with 50 Cent so I guess it worked). It’s an okay book, but the presentation of text was at issue:
Not the best picture, but you can see the juxtaposition of main text (black) and side quotation (red).
I laughed with delight, because it struck me as very, very old-fashioned. It’s the same thing ancient scholars did when they wrote notes in the margins…
Homer + notes. {link:http://www.historyofinformation.com/index.php}Courtesy of this cool site.{/link}
…and the same thing medieval monks did when they illuminated manuscripts:
WTF, Vatican? Those monks be trippin. {link:http://www.historyofinformation.com/index.php}From the same cool site.{/link}.
People have always found ways to make reading holistic, and even non-linear. So it’s no surprise that “Pop-up Video” and Colbert’s “Word” came up as further examples of how to make text sexy.
Remember? {link:http://popwatch.ew.com/2011/05/25/pop-up-video-returns}EW does{/link}... and it's coming back.
My wheelhouse: contrasting ideas (central to funniness).
I work in UI (user interactivity, online) and I’m the first to admit it encourages the basest of human instincts. Long-winded ideas mean nothing in the face of compulsive button-pressing and clicking and mouse-overing. Really and truly, there’s no need for a page-flipping function on e-readers. It’s just more fun that way. Catering to the terminally bored and fickle web consumer is my job.
Luckily, I’ve got no problems with that. I’m fickle and easily bored. I like mouseovers and page-flipping. And the reason I know the Shallows dude is right is because I can feel my own attention span getting shorter by the…wait, what was I saying? I forget.
So I’m not one of those people who minds innovation, though I totally understand resistance to technological change. The invention of illuminated manuscripts probably pissed some austere reader off way back when. “Jeez, aren’t the words of the Holy Book enough, already?” I imagine them asking. (Just so you understand how my mind works, I also imagine a student being transported back to medieval times, poking at the illuminated images because they can’t figure out how to flip the manuscript pages by hand. My drive to amuse myself is stronger than you can know.)
And I’m resistant to change only because worrying about the newest ways to present stuff is a job — or many jobs. I just wasted an inordinate amount of time finding images for this post, then figuring out how to put links in the captions for them. It’s tough when you care about words, because doing all of this stuff yourself takes your attention away from reading and writing them, even if you appreciate the value of holistic reading experiences.
I don’t think text is going to go away entirely. I do think it will have to be simplified and juxtaposed and decorated with bells, whistles, and buttons. Really, the only thing that worries me is that first one: we are forced to work with less of it, at least when dealing with a generation that literally can’t cope with extended narratives. (Goodbye, Iliad!) And no, I don’t think this is an evolutionary benefit.
Not that pictures don’t require cultural knowledge. What’s going on with the picture below? (Find out here if it’s not obvious.) Sadly, I don’t think a lot my former students would bother to find out, or even click through that link. That’s the real problem lurking behind the “kids don’t like to read” issue, but it’s also a whole ‘nother post. One that requires lots of margaritas. And it’s just too early for that.
This is why I love living in Austin.
You’ve probably seen Medieval HelpDesk, but since you mention flipping pages in an illuminated manuscript, I thought it would be worth pointing it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ
(No, I don’t know how to embed links in comments — I am very much like the monk.)
Very nice, I hadn’t seen it. You might appreciate this:
Having taught 6th-11th grade Latin classes this year, I would say that among some children there is definitely hostility towards reading. I had 6th graders who were well below grade level and 11th graders who proudly proclaimed that they’d never finished a book in their lives. Then again, I also had 6th graders who’d already read The Lord of the Rings and high schoolers who willingly chose 900+ page novels for their project.
One of my least favorite things about reading on a device is how easy it is (and sometimes essential) to take frequent breaks. It’s inherently distracting to read on a device that can check email, receive messages, and play games. I’ve also always found it satisfying to gauge my progress in a book by measuring the proportion of how much I’d read to how much was left, something you can’t do on an e-reader (page numbers just don’t compare). The only advantage I can see is not having to carry or keep a collection of physical books, but then again, I’ve always enjoyed owning and displaying them.
Why is dumbing down and catering to this evermore pervasive idea that everyone is ADD and needs constant stimulation becoming the norm? It’s enough to make me a “crazy” conspiracy theorist.
Dumbing down is becoming the norm because it’s a reality that most students (esp. under 20) simply cannot focus. Look, I don’t like it any more than you do, but I also find it ridiculous to deny the reality — setting the initial bar far above what they can reasonably do isn’t actually going to help them. So if we need to start lower, so be it.
At the risk of causing flashbacks in you, I have to ask — can you give an example of how, say, a Classics prof might have “start[ed] lower” in one of her courses? Is it a matter of assigning fewer pages, or things written more for a high-school-level audience, or writing up reading notes for the students to use as they (might or might not) do the readings, or…?
Oh, no problem. I had to teach the freakin’ Iliad, so I have experience making tough choices to eliminate reading.
Best case scenario: since students have lost the ability to choose important info for themselves, do it for them. Severely limit the readings. No whole plays, novels etc., just significant passages — let’s say five or less. Worst case scenario: assume students will not do the reading at all, treat class like storytime, perform said important passages for them, and tell them what they would have gotten from reading it. That way they have some sort of takeaway.
I don’t believe in writing out anything for them. It’s far too time-consuming, it’s more reading they simply won’t do/absorb. So let them use Sparknotes if that’s what they want. Better yet, give them the backstory/plotline orally. At least that way you can emphasize what’s important…though of course that’s highly variable from prof to prof.
Wow. That might not be “dumb”, but it sure is “down”. It seems a bit too far on the “giving up” side of the “giving up —— accepting” continuum for me, but the proof of the pudding is in the results. What kind(s) of results did you get from that approach? Was there deeper engagement with the tiny bits of assigned material? Was there light-bulbs-going-off goodness in class? Were there lively and thoughtful conversations?
Nope, no deeper engagement, no critical thinking. I gave up on that too — except for this: teaching as oral culture is the equivalent of motivational speaking. For a single moment, you might be able to transmit your own passion, and at that moment perhaps they do care/engage. If they grasp it and run with that, great, maybe you can get somewhere. If not, time to move on. To think anyone is responsible for “making” students care, every day anew, when they won’t meet you halfway? That’s pathological IMHO. Hence the “takeaway”: maybe, ten years down the road, they’ll have a vaguely positive memory about good ol’ Homer and his crazy stories. When faced with a roomful of students who didn’t want to be there, that was an okay result for me.
Best professor I had in college did something similar – the entire semester, the only reading we did was the Iliad. He assigned a book or two/three a class and let everyone skip the lineage. He knew it was the only way to get 30 freshman to read that book (or he was experimenting and I happened to be part of it). From my experience in that class, everyone did actually read it.
That, and he said “fuck” in class which meant a lot to every one. Scaling it down and being radical just might be the way to get kids interested.
I like it! Both the approach and the swearing!
I went to 2 parties the 4th of July, both very nice, both populated mostly by 30ish people or slightly younger.
Party #1 was ADD causing though, I swear. Movies were being watched, phones looked at, conversations started and discontinued, pictures taken, on and on, there was no attention span.
Party #2 didn’t have the ADD aspect, people were conversing normally, although they were of course footnoting what they had to say by showing websites and things.
Point: in Party #2, I was told by law students that I was lucky to come from when you had to learn to deal with lots of plain text, because it was a real advantage.
Honestly, I’ve started to feel the same way, lucky to have absorbed the last vestiges of textual socity. I may feel my attention slipping into the ADD zone, but at least I can pull myself back from it. And I’m telling you, the 15-20′s are yet more horrific.
I like reading, and I do a lot of it; I just take frequent breaks if it’s a more tedious reading (academic v. novel). I’m a big fan of reading a chapter and then walking around the block – or sleeping on it, if I have time – before reading the next one. Do I have a shorter attention span than I would have if I’d grown up 100 years earlier? Probably. But I don’t think it’s impossible to deal with, even if the books don’t change.
Ah, but we’re not talking 100 years any more, we’re talking a huge change every decade. I work with people who grew up never knowing what it was like to live without Google (and maybe that’s you too, who knows) it has such a dramatic effect on how people think — or don’t, as the case may be.
I embrace the ease of getting information for sure but I really don’t like the sense of “oh, well, if I have to search for more than 30 seconds, it’s not worth getting.” Same with thoughts/words: big fan of the takeaway soundbite here, but distressed to see people’s complete inability to deal with complex issues. I’m sure this isn’t you, but it’s definitely something I see in many young ‘uns.
I think there have always been people who have loved to read, others who could take it or leave it, and those who loathe it. Literacy and ready access to printed materials is a really recent development in terms of humanity. One could argue that because for most of our history, we learned visually and orally, making radio and TV such seductive mediums, not because we’re dumb but because we’re wired to receive information that way.
I think that’s an important element that never really is discussed; how short out history of relatively universal literacy is. But I also think that students are less willing to do sustained reading/research, but that might be as much a reflection of how they are taught (teaching to the test) as well as technology. Once students are shown that there are things beyond the first page of google, most of them are willing to explore. A lot of time, they’ve never been a) encouraged to explore and b) shown or allowed to come to understand that there are lots of rewards waiting for them. We are a culture of instant gratification and the cult of superficial happiness. Technology facilitates that impulse, but wasn’t the cause.
Ah, but even in oral cultures there was an emphasis on learning the damned material – often by heart, and sometimes under the threat of corporal punishment. (The ones I know about anyway.) I guess what I worry about most is the refusal to practice anything. I agree it’s related to how they were taught in school, though my view of their Google enthusiasm is less rosy than yours; in a general civ class I’m not kidding: most kids wouldn’t even bother with a Wikipedia clickthrough. But again, I think a motivation/apathy issue more than anything.
Alan Jacobs addresses this issue in _The Pleasures of Reading in the Age of Distraction_. He points out: 1. We tend to assume that technological progress = more distraction, but that’s not actually the case–the Kindle actually helped him get his concentration back; and 2. As ReadyWriting points out above, sustained, long-form reading has always been a niche interest. I think he makes a pretty strong case for all this.
Motivation and apathy are certainly an issue, but my sense is that has more to do with the fact that we’ve made a liberal arts education the hoop to jump through for generic white-collar employment–hence lots of students who just want to check the box. That’s a problem, but it’s not a problem with text per se. It’s a problem with education and the social expectation we put upon it. Change those expectations–tall order, I know–and then see if (or how much) you need to change text.
Right, but AJ had enough focus to write a whole freakin’ book. My point is that most students don’t have any focus at all, and the reading thing is just an extension of that. And “addressing the issue” in an OUP book? No comment.
I’m very happy that my 11 year old daughter has turned out to be a voracious reader like her old man. I would have been quite disappointed if she failed to develop a love for the written word and a reverence for great books.
I am worried for future generations, though. Where are we going to find the next Steinbeck, Hemmingway or Michener if all of our children are permanently tethered to a smartphone?