Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World

by Naomi S. Baron

Paperback, 2016

Status

Available

Call number

028.90285

Publication

Oxford University Press (2016), Edition: Reprint, 328 pages

Language

Original language

English

Description

People have been reading on computer screens for several decades now, predating popularization of personal computers and widespread use of the internet. But it was the rise of eReaders and tablets that caused digital reading to explode. In 2007, Amazon introduced its first Kindle. Three years later, Apple debuted the iPad. Meanwhile, as mobile phone technology improved and smartphones proliferated, the phone became another vital reading platform.In Words Onscreen, Naomi Baron, an expert on language and technology, explores how technology is reshaping our understanding of what it means to read. Digital reading is increasingly popular. Reading onscreen has many virtues, including convenience, potential cost-savings, and the opportunity to bring free access to books and other written materials to people around the world. Yet, Baron argues, the virtues of eReading are matched with drawbacks. Users are easily distracted by other temptations on their devices, multitasking is rampant, and screens coax us to skim rather than read in-depth. What is more, if the way we read is changing, so is the way we write. In response to changing reading habits, many authors and publishers are producing shorter works and ones that don't require reflection or close reading.In her tour through the new world of eReading, Baron weights the value of reading physical print versus online text, including the question of what long-standing benefits of reading might be lost if we go overwhelmingly digital. She also probes how the internet is shifting reading from being a solitary experience to a social one, and the reasons why eReading has taken off in some countries, especially the United States and United Kingdom, but not others, like France and Japan. Reaching past the hype on both sides of the discussion, Baron draws upon her own cross-cultural studies to offer a clear-eyed and balanced analysis of the ways technology is affecting the ways we read today--and what the future might bring.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member SamSattler
Digital reading, via such electronic reading devices as the Nook, the Kindle, and the recently departed Sony Reader, has been around long enough now that its side-effects are starting to be measured and discussed. The root question regarding digital reading explored by Naomi S. Baron in Words
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Onscreen is one of whether or not “digital reading is reshaping our very understanding of what it means to read.” Readers of Words Onscreen, if they had not already reached that conclusion before beginning the book, are likely to come away from a reading of it with a resounding “yes” in answer to the author’s question.

Few would argue that reading a book on a Kindle provides the same experience as reading that same book in its physical form. Each format has its own set of distinct characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages and, largely depending on personal preferences, each format attracts strong advocates – and equally strong critics. Naomi Baron, by exploring those advantages, disadvantages, and related characteristics in detail, explains why that is and why it is unlikely to change. If not always surprising, what Baron learns in her study of digital reading (and digital readers) is always thought provoking enough to steer the reader toward self-examination of his own feelings about the electronic reading process and environment.

Baron begins with the premise that digital reading is suitable for shorter pieces of light content, the kind of thing the reader neither intends to analyze nor to reread. At the same time, she states that digital reading is not at all suited for reading most long works or works of any length that require “serious thought” on the part of the reader. Does this mean that, as the prevalence of digital reading continues to increase, certain types of reading will be abandoned by even the most serious of readers? Baron, in her chapter detailing the ever-increasing adoption of digital textbooks by American colleges, argues that this might just be the case. And that shift in focus and ability to deeply study a text, she argues, will have detrimental effects on all of our futures.

Words Onscreen explores these and many other issues related to America, Canada, and Britain’s eager (although the pace has slowed in recent months) adoption of digital reading. Interestingly, for a variety of reasons, some of which are financial and some cultural, the rest of the world has not moved toward digital reading nearly as enthusiastically as have these three countries. Even more interesting, because it seems to defy common sense, is the discovery that much of the resistance toward digital reading comes from readers in their twenties and younger. One would have expected such resistance to come almost exclusively from older, more tradition-oriented, readers. That this is not the case, however, is only one of the surprises to be found in Words Onscreen.

Side Note: I read Words Onscreen in digital form and, as a result, while reading it I experienced firsthand some of what Baron describes in the book. I have found, however, that as I gain experience in reading e-books, I am beginning to overcome some of the limitations inherent to digital reading.
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LibraryThing member dono421846
"I will argue that digital reading is find for many short pieces or for light content we don't intend to analyze or reread. However, if eReading is less well suited for many longer works or even for short ones requiring serious thought, what happens to reading if we shift from print to
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screens?"

Baron builds her case with original survey data as well a thorough consideration of the relevant literature. To wit: despite the popular mythology that digital texts will be a boon to students, in fact they prefer paper. Research shows that reading in print increases memory and understanding, and encourages the consideration of larger arguments rather than the dredging for isolated information.

According to her analysis, "the kinds of reading that digital devices generally discourage:

* Reading longer texts
* Rereading
* Deep reading
* Memory of what you have read (which is often aided by handwritten annotation)
* Individual (rather than primarily social) encounters with books
* Stumble-upon possibilities
* Strong emotional involvement"

A timely and cautionary lesson for these changing times.
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DDC/MDS

028.90285

Physical description

328 p.; 9.1 inches

ISBN

0190624167 / 9780190624163
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