19
votes
I have forgotten how to read: For a long time Michael Harris convinced himself that a childhood spent immersed in old-fashioned books would insulate him from our new media climate. He was wrong.
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- Title
- I have forgotten how to read
- Published
- Feb 9 2018
- Word count
- 1668 words
I switched to electronic book formats 25 years ago, and missed paper very little (mainly as mobile battery life became a concern). The mere medium isn't the problem, but rather the constant stream of urgent interrupts and context switches from one siloed information feed to another.
I may be an outlier, but my attention hasn't been fragmented by technology, so much as the expectation that every moment serve a productive purpose. There's no longer opportunity to relax into the state of absorption and
reflective contemplation which longer text demands.
Isn't that what the author is saying though? He's no longer able to sink into that state and consume a book, because of the effect that technology has had upon his mind?
speaking as someone who is terminally online as a matter of both habit and occupation, i haven't really experienced a lack of attentiveness when it comes to reading so much as a lack of time to do it. reading most books takes a shit ton of time, and you really start to notice when you don't have time. i've relatively glacially been reading "when the war was over" for example, and one of my physical books i've only made it 80 or so pages into this semester out of like, 450 (despite being two months in so far) because there's just so little downtime between my classes and homework and taking time to just not do anything that even a chapter every now and then takes significant effort.
I think this is one of the most universally shared university experiences. Book reading for pleasure always seems to go by the wayside for many during the school years.
What device were you using 25 years ago?
Palm Pilot - basically, it was a solution to the problem of bedtime reading lights keeping my partner awake.
A few years ago I had a similar experience. I sat down to read a book for the first time in a looong time and found I had massive difficulty getting through large paragraphs instead of a never-ending stream of quickly-read blurbs, excerpts, and comments.
I bought a Kindle that day and made myself read. And read and read and read. It helped. A lot. I got back to where I had been, but the experience was almost frightening. I had to re-train my brain for long-form reading and it's crazy just how fast that ability can go away when not used.
I actually had to train myself back into reading. I’m on a trip with limited internet so I can’t go into detail, but it involved changing how I used digital media:
Turning off all notifications for anything that doesn’t explicitly have real human beings wanting to get in contact with me (phone, text, IM). Also get rid of apps wherever you can and switch to the mobile web.
Use reader mode or RSS as the main way to read content online.
Watch shows instead of YouTube.
Put my phone in a case with a snap closure so I have to remove it every time I want to use it. Adds friction to the process of using your phone.
All that is for making the ad tech stop breaking your brain. To get back in the habit I:
Have you read any of The Stormlight Archives books? A coworker of mine recommended them to me and I almost didn't get past the first page due to the ridiculous terminology (it opens with a guy with a shardblade breaking his oathpact, and I'm just waiting for him to get on his ponyhorse and ride to villagetown), but the story itself is excellent fantasy and it manages to avoid a lot of tropes and builds a pretty unique world.
This paragraph really stood out to me. How we read affects not only the experience of reading but also what we read, and both change how we write. It is a shift that changes how we express and understand ourselves as a culture. The book as a medium (whether physical or electronic) is not going to disappear but I wonder how we will change as we read differently.
I've noticed the same problem as the author, but only in the context of online reading. If I'm reading an article on my computer or on my phone, my attention wanders. I start skimming paragraphs and wanting to skip ahead. It happened even while reading this article. I found myself, partway through reading this, scrolling down to see how long the article was. I had to make a conscious decision to go back and read every single line.
However, I don't have the same problem when I'm reading a physical printed book. I can still sink into the narrative and read through the paragraphs and keep going, page after page. This also happens when I read on my kobo.
I seem to have two different and separate styles of reading, depending on the context in which I'm reading something.
I used to read newspapers and magazines the way you’re describing before the internet got gobbled up by ad tech though. So it might not just be distraction.
I think most pop-writing just tends to meander a bit and doesn’t hold attention as well as a longer work. Journalists and columnists work on deadlines and don’t lovingly craft their text to the same extent that novelists and essayists do.
One particular bad writing habit I’ve noticed with a lot of younger writers is tons of parentheticals, tangents, and side-commentary interspersed within their main line of thought. It makes their writing disjointed and hard to get engrossed into. It’s especially grating when you read these as audiobooks since you can’t skim as easily. I often find myself getting exasperated and saying “Jesus H. Christ finish your goddamn thought already!”
can someone tell me what this says?