Is our digital reading changing the way we think?
Kevin Kelly writes an interesting essay in the Smithsonian about 'Reading in a whole new way.'
"Today some 4.5 billion digital screens illuminate our lives. Words have migrated from wood pulp to pixels on computers, phones, laptops, game consoles, televisions, billboards and tablets. Letters are no longer fixed in black ink on paper, but flitter on a glass surface in a rainbow of colors as fast as our eyes can blink. Screens fill our pockets, briefcases, dashboards, living room walls and the sides of buildings. They sit in front of us when we work—regardless of what we do. We are now people of the screen. And of course, these newly ubiquitous screens have changed how we read and write....
But it is not book reading. Or newspaper reading. It is screen reading. Screens are always on, and, unlike with books we never stop staring at them. This new platform is very visual, and it is gradually merging words with moving images: words zip around, they float over images, serving as footnotes or annotations, linking to other words or images."
Kelly argues that traditional books were good at developing a contemplative mind and analytical thinking but new screen reading engages our bodies, encourages utilitarian thinking, pattern making, thinking in real time, it rewards and nurtures instantaneously,...
If not already but in the near future, Kelly concludes, "Screens will be the first place we’ll look for answers, for friends, for news, for meaning, for our sense of who we are."
It's interesting to think about how our new digital reading affects our thinking and perspectives. Are many just wading on the surface?
