Digital World Has no Room for Books

I saw Digital Nation last night for the first time. What a mind-blower. They were discussing a subject near and dear to my heart: reading books and...not reading books. Those on the program contended that with the fast-paced changes in digital technology, the Internet, and video games, students of all ages do not want to read anything long - like say, a book. College professors say they cannot assign anything over 200 pages. (There goes A Prayer for Owen Meany, most of Dickens, Austen and any of the Victorians although I always thought they were a bit verbose anyway.) No more Moby Dick, (I hear thousands of hands clapping). Even a lot of modern novels are over 200 pages long. Wow. If college kids aren't reading those "long" books, how do we expect high schoolers to read anything over 150 pages?

The fact is, we can't. We can beg them to read; we can bribe them. We can try to make reading a game - exciting and fast-paced. We can try a lot of things, but the truth is, many, if not most of them, will not read more than a few pages a night if they even do that. They will go online and read the synopses which are abundant. They may even read the commentary or criticism if they want to impress their teachers. They will find the sites that provide tests and quizzes. They will go to great lengths to disguise purloined essays from the Web. But they will not read the entire book. Uh uh, no way, nada. Call me old-fashioned, but nothing substitutes for the real thing. Synopses are but pale ghosts of the lives and emotions depicted in a good book.

Why won't they read books? Digital Nation says that it isn't because they cannot concentrate for any length of time. They can play video games for hours and watch long movies diligently. But they want their literature fast, short, and they want it easy to read and understand. To take the time to read a long chapter and actually think about any nuances or message or theme? Come on, there are games to play, messages to text, music to download. The digital world is too seductive to resist and many parents are too busy to control their children's time. Some parents even think that letting Junior play video games until 2 a.m. will help him get a great job someday.

And it might. The armed services use drones in Iraq and Afghanistan which are controlled from the United States. The pilots wear cammies and report to duty every day and are able to return home to their families after work is over. Yes, it's safe and that is good, and most of these people actually know how to fly a plane. However, the TV show last night mentioned that in the near future, they will not be required to have ever flown a real plane. They just need to be good with the computerized controls they sit before. They may not even have to do sit-ups and push-ups and run. Wow. So all those hours Junior sat in front of his flickering screen playing war games will enable him to get a job. Mind-boggling.

And this is scary to me, a former English teacher. I knew we were losing the grammar battle years ago. I know that our language, one of the richest in the world, is losing its richness and texture to sloppiness and laziness. Who uses the past perfect anymore? I had taught many classes before my eyes and ears were opened to the truth. Most people don't want to take the time to express themselves carefully and clearly, let alone eloquently. It just doesn't matter anymore.

Don't get me wrong. I still wage the battle. I still fight the good fight. I simply know that the trenches I fight from are getting smaller with fewer fighters every year. In a world where a person with an extensive and well-used vocabulary is considered musty and boring and sometimes even incorrect by the masses, the language can't help but be diluted. In a world where people won't read books, the intellect becomes diluted and dulled. We need words to express how we feel, what we think, or how to solve problems. The poorer our vocabulary becomes, the weaker our thoughts, because we cannot express them to any degree of exactness. I would have used the word "exactitude" but I don't want to be considered hoity-toity.

Last night, the participants, all experts in their fields of education and digitalness, admitted that some things are lost as technology speeds on. But they didn't seem concerned. To them the future is bright because it is moving toward us and becomes the present in a dizzying whirl of development and new devices to "help" us or entertain us. Seductive, yes. But the Sirens were seductive, and they caused the deaths of many Greek argonauts who listened to their beautiful voices and couldn't resist getting close enough for a look.

I don't think we are heading for destruction with our technological developments - well, most of them anyway. But I do think we are losing some very important skills - reading, writing, and thinking things out in depth. Yes, some people will still read and think and do great things, but what about the masses? What about Trevor and Ellie sitting in their classrooms watching the movie of To Kill a Mockingbird instead of reading the book? Will they be able to discern when our political or financial leaders are lying to us? Will they know history and try to avoid it happening again? Will they know human nature well enough that they can make informed judgments? Maybe Second City can teach them about human nature. I sure hope so.

To counter the tone of the above post, I enclose a poem that isn't so serious about technology.

Remember When by James S. Huggins (Site: Refrigerator Door)

A Poem About Technology

A computer was something on TV
From a sci fi show of note.
A window was something you hated to clean
And ram was the cousin of goat.

Meg was the name of my girlfriend
And gig was a job for the nights.
Now they all mean different things
And that really mega bytes.

An application was for employment.
A program was a TV show.
A curser used profanity.
A keyboard was a piano.

Memory was something that you lost with age.
A CD was a bank account.
And if you had a 3 1/2" floppy
You hoped nobody found out.

Compress was something you did to the garbage
Not something you did to a file.
And if you unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for a while.

Log on was adding wood to the fire.
Hard drive was a long trip on the road.
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived.
And a backup happened to your commode.

Cut you did with a pocket knife.
Paste you did with glue.
A web was a spider's home.
And a virus was the flu

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head.
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash,
But when it happens they wish they were dead.

And finally, a quote I found on a page that held a poem about technology that was, get this, too long to publish today. Maybe tomorrow. But here's an interesting quote from this page.


One of the seductive things about the internet is its immediacy.
It kind of demands immediate involvement but our lives have
priorites and often we must set the internet aside and do what
is important and let the immediacy go. So time between
communication is just time spent on those real events that
fill out our lives. John Peterson, Publisher, PoeticMatrix.com