Future of the Word

Chris Goodall

Description

The average young adult in the US reads for about 7 minutes a day, and the figure isn't much higher in Britain. The last few decades have seen striking and nearly continuous falls in the amount of time individuals spend with books and other printed material. And, perhaps as a result, the average level of literacy in the British and US populations is declining: our ability to comprehend complex writing, long words or sophisticated expressions is less than it was a few decades ago. Very surprisingly, the rate of decline is fastest amongst the best educated segment of the population. Chris Goodall's readable and comprehensive book asks why this is happening. 'In an ever more demanding world' he inquires 'why is our ability to understand and use the written word in gradual but apparently relentless retreat?' Chris Goodall's The Future of the Word: Technology, culture and the slow erosion of literacy examines the striking but largely unnoticed evidence from around the world. Using the latest research results from neuroscientists, from academics who work on reading skills and from cultural analysts, Goodall brings his commitment to scrupulous research to demonstrate how modern society is making it almost impossible for people to engage in deep reading. Not only are people reading less but they now consume the written word in a more cursory and less reflective way. The author has lost control of the reader: we all tend to skip across the page, searching exclusively for what is relevant to us rather than trying to understand the writer's point of view or memorise her arguments. There is a strong tendency to say that this doesn't matter. We longer need to read and to learn because all the information that we could possibly need is instantaneously available to us through electronic gadgets. The argument of Goodall's book is that this complacency is mistaken. Reading deeply helps us develop a framework and an intellectual structure to which we can add new ideas or opinions. The internet gives us orphaned facts but the reading of books or long articles gives us understanding. As importantly, deep reading trains our brains to cope with complex ideas, much as an athlete trains his muscles with repeated exercise. Goodall discusses the convincing scientific evidence that truly proficient literacy, a skill which is in sharp decline, helps improve other cognitive capabilities and may even improve IQ. If we don't go to the literacy gym often enough, he says, our intellectual capabilities suffer. Chris Goodall is a well known writer on climate change and energy, winning awards for his previous books and he is a regular commentator on scientific issues in newspapers in the UK and abroad. In an earlier part of his career he worked in television and other mass media. This book comes out of his fascination with how electronic technologies are affecting the way we think and live. 'Although the digital revolution has made life easier and has improved many of our cognitive skills', he says 'it is reversing our ability to read and to comprehend complex ideas'. Full of engaging reports of cutting-edge science, surprising and informative analysis and written with clarity and pace, Chris Goodall's The Future of the Word is the first attempt to bring rigour to questions that many of us worry about it: why do we find it more difficult to concentrate on the written word? And what can we do about it?

Sujets

• Popular science

Informations

• Publié par: Crack Willow Press
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780956836830
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Future of the Word: Technology, culture and the slow erosion of literacy
Copyright © Chris Goodall, 2011
Chris Goodall has asserted his rights in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This digital edition published in 2011 by Crack Willow Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, reproduction, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher and the copyright owners.
eBook ISBN: 978-0-9568368-3-0
A book from the Crack Willow Press, 26 Navigation Way, Oxford, OX2 6XW, UK.
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The Future of the Word: Technology, culture and the slow erosion of literacy
The average young adult in the US reads for about 7 minutes a day, and the figure isn’t much higher in Britain. The last few decades have seen striking and nearly continuous falls in the amount of time individuals spend with books and other printed material. And, perhaps as a result, the average level of literacy in the British and US populations is declining: our ability to comprehend complex writing, long words or sophisticated expressions is less than it was a few decades ago. Very surprisingly, the rate of decline is fastest amongst the best educated segment of the population.
Chris Goodall’s readable and comprehensive book asks why this is happening. ‘In an ever more demanding world’ he inquires ‘why is our ability to understand and use the written word in gradual but apparently relentless retreat?’ Chris Goodall’s The Future of the Word: Technology, culture and the slow erosion of literacy examines the striking but largely unnoticed evidence from around the world. Using the latest research results from neuroscientists, from academics who work on reading skills and from cultural analysts, Goodall brings his commitment to scrupulous research to demonstrate how modern society is making it almost impossible for people to engage in deep reading. Not only are people reading less but they now consume the written word in a more cursory and less reflective way. The author has lost control of the reader: we all tend to skip across the page, searching exclusively for what is relevant to us rather than trying to understand the writer’s point of view or memorise her arguments.
There is a strong tendency to say that this doesn’t matter. We longer need to read and to learn because all the information that we could possibly need is instantaneously available to us through electronic gadgets. The argument of Goodall’s book is that this complacency is mistaken. Reading deeply helps us develop a framework and an intellectual structure to which we can add new ideas or opinions. The internet gives us orphaned facts but the reading of books or long articles gives us understanding.
As importantly, deep reading trains our brains to cope with complex ideas, much as an athlete trains his muscles with repeated exercise. Goodall discusses the convincing scientific evidence that truly proficient literacy, a skill which is in sharp decline, helps improve other cognitive capabilities and may even improve IQ. If we don’t go to the literacy gym often enough, he says, our intellectual capabilities suffer.
Chris Goodall is a well known writer on climate change and energy, winning awards for his previous books and he is a regular commentator on scientific issues in newspapers in the UK and abroad. In an earlier part of his career he worked in television and other mass media. This book comes out of his fascination with how electronic technologies are affecting the way we think and live. ‘Although the digital revolution has made life easier and has improved many of our cognitive skills’, he says ‘it is reversing our ability to read and to comprehend complex ideas’.
Full of engaging reports of cutting-edge science, surprising and informative analysis and written with clarity and pace, Chris Goodall’s The Future of the Word is the first attempt to bring rigour to questions that many of us worry about it: why do we find it more difficult to concentrate on the written word? And what can we do about it?
About The Author
Chris Goodall is a science writer based in Oxford. He has written award-winning books on energy and climate change and is a contributor to the Guardian and other newspapers. The New Scientist called How to Live a Low-carbon Life ‘the definitive guide’ and Ten Technologies to Fix Energy and Climate was one of the books of the year in the Financial Times. He started his career in a completely different field - mass media - and The Future of the Word is a crisp summary of the threats to literacy and editorial accuracy arising from changes in technology.
Chris Goodall – [e-mail]
March 2011
Table of Contents
Chapter 1, The end of deep reading?
Chapter 2, The erosion of literacy
Assessing the degree of literacy
Vocabulary
The hidden cost of only reading easy written material – lower IQ?
Chapter 3, Every word you read changes your brain
The crucial role of working memory
The importance of literacy
High proficiency does matter
Chapter 4, The mind is losing control over the brain
Brain chemicals
Multi-tasking
Distractions and the overloading of working memory
Chapter 5, Our endlessly distracted eyes
The writer has lost control
Turning everything into a web page: hypertext as a false good
Screen reading
The subcontracting of memory
The steady shift away from the written word as the primary means of communication
Why does writing matter?
The increase in jargon and opaque language
Chapter 6, The inevitable decline of publishing
If you want to keep something secret, never write it down
It must be right because lots of people think it is right: the implications of the loss of authority of the written word
The end of editing
Amazon, Apple and Google and the digital monopoly
The death of the newspaper
Chapter 7, Repairing the brain: self-help for the worried reader
Lesson 1: The digital world offers us a superabundance of information and entertainment but we have responded by narrowing our reading
Lesson 2: We read less, but as a result have to spend more time listening to others
Lesson 3: Internal reflection and dialogue with oneself is reduced
Lesson 4: Literacy bought us enhanced intelligence, and its gradual loss may reverse this trend
Lesson 5: The network is the knowledge
Lesson 6: The end of the sinewy written argument
Lesson 7: Fighting the loss of concentration
Lesson 8: Slow reading
Lesson 9: Time spent reading affects reading ability
Chapter 1
The end of deep reading?
‘The one thing I do worry about is the question of ‘deep reading’. As the world looks to.. instantaneous devices .. you spend less time reading all forms of literature, books, magazines and so forth. That probably has an effect on cognition, probably has an effect on reading.’
Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Google Inc, January 2010
The world didn’t notice Eric Schmidt’s comment. 1 Nor did it remark on the extraordinary volte face it represented. Only eighteen months before, the cerebral boss of the central institution of the digital age had laughed off ‘histrionics about the role of information’ saying that ‘society is enormously powerful, enormously capable of adapting to the threats’ posed to the intense study of books. Now Schmidt admits what many of us have already noticed: serious reading is disappearing fast and this affects the way we think. One recent survey showed that young American adults spend just 7 minutes a day engaged in reading outside the workplace. 2 The amount of time devoted to reading among the most highly educated cohort is falling faster than that of other groups and the reading proficiency of the US postgraduate is less than that of undergraduates of a decade ago. The position in the UK is much the same: Ofcom recently reported that young adults in the UK spent ten times as much time engaged in ‘text communications’ such as social networking as they do on reading. 3
Have you also noticed that you don’t read as much as you used to? Are you finding it more difficult to concentrate on what is on the page? And that you spend more time simply searching for information rather than carefully reading books or magazines and giving the author your time and full attention? Or that you scan pages looking for keywords, rather than reading the document in entirety? If so, you are similar to most people in advanced societies. Many of us read less and find ourselves increasingly unable to absorb complex arguments, understand long sentences or even sit down to concentrate on reading for more than a few minutes. This book explains why this has happened and examines the implications for us and for the societies in which we live.
The changes in the amount we read are mirrored by developments in the main industries providing us with text. Newspapers are disappearing as demand falls and publishers of books and magazines are under severe financial pressure around the world. Nevertheless, the availability of the written word continues to increase as digitalisation and the internet create an ever-increasing volume of text. At the same time as people’s propensity to read is falling, we are now flooded with an almost infinite range of material over which we cursorily pass our eyes.
I think that most of us recognise the decline in serious reading from our personal experiences. I used to enjoy modern poetry. But a poem requires us to slow down, to listen and to feel the words as the author intended. Decades of work in the media industries forced me to increase the speed of my reading, to relentlessly search for the key points in a text and to summarise hurriedly what I had read. You cannot approach a poem in this way, looking for the bullet points or