We Need to Make More Readers
We are reaching the point where we have to ask not only whether works of larger significance and reach can still be created, but also whether audiences—readers, viewers, listeners—would still know how to take them in if they were.
Sven Birkerts • The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age
Now consider our current situation. Despite all the language professing otherwise, in general the education system of the United States is based entirely on genetic determinism. A child is born assumed to have innate traits, including, for example, a preference as to what they want to be when they grow up (somehow just waiting fully-formed inside o... See more
Erik Hoel • Why We Stopped Making Einsteins
This creates a different relationship with reading. It stops being a form of pleasurable immersion in another world and becomes more like dashing around a busy supermarket to grab what you need and then get out again.