Sunday, July 27, 2008

Reading habits ...

... first the debate at the Britannica Blog.

... then a piece in today's NYT: Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading? (Hat tip, Dave Lull, Lee Lowe, and Judith Fitzgerald.)

... and this, which inject some facts - as opposed to anecdotes - into the debate: It's the screens, not the internet, that are making us stupid. (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)

I don't for a moment buy the idea that reading electronically in any way diminishes the capacity to read print. I read lots of both and notice know difference (I know, that's anecdotal; but it's also what I've experienced - ooh, I just used a semicolon).

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:28 PM

    Anytime this comes up, I remember Steven Berlin Johnson's Dawn of the Digital Natives, which covers the contrarian view well. Then again, as I mentioned here, I'm not convinced that this, if it is a problem, can be changed anyway, especially using the nattering methods most often employed.

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  2. Anonymous9:08 PM

    <*ahem*>

    Mr. Wilson, Suh! You think I am going to take the bait, go dip-and-diving after that spangly dangly fool's goad, don'tcha? Har. I'd rather eat a nug; and, if you don't know the ref, you'll have to rent the movie Silent Partner (which, IIRC, starred Robert Joy; but, I might be wrong).

    DO NOT PASS SEMI-GO: GO DIRECTLY TO COLON JAIL. (OR ELSE!)

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  3. Anonymous6:47 PM

    Excuse my rusty creakin' memory of the film to which I referred: Firstly, it's called The Silent Partner (1978); secondly, it wasn't Robert Joy; it was Elliott Gould (as well as John Candy, Christopher Plummer, and Tony Rosato, the Canadian SNL star afflicted with Capgras Disorder). A fine-tuned suspense flick, though, regardless of who played Santa Claus:

    http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0078269/

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