The Evolution of Reading
Reading is a major part of most of people’s lives. Just think about it: you read when you are online, when you look at the newspaper, you read a recipe, the labels, and so on. However, it seems that there is a huge difference between the reading which took place in the past, and the reading which takes place now; the difference being the paper, or the lack of it would be more suitable to say.
Writing was done exclusively on paper in the past. The Bible was written on paper, the Declaration of Independence was written on paper, and so on. The literacy of a country depending on the access the people of the country had to the paper on which words were written. It is said that in Europe the monks were often the only ones who knew how to read, and the simple people who listened to their services were not allowed to do it. The monks and the priests considered the ability of reading to be a direct connection with God, and if a simple man would be able to read, then that connection would lose its meaning. The prosperity of the country grew thanks to reading and to writing. Reading and writing, just like most of the things in this world, are not static. In the ancient times the authors of the books dictated the words. Because dictation was done in a very fast tempo, the one who wrote did not leave spaces between words. The writing would become “somethinglikethis”. As you can imagine, it would be very difficult to read such a text. The ones who were able to read were praised by the communities, as they were considered to have a very great talent, or a gift.
In Europe, during the 15th Century, only 1 in 20 adult males were able to write. Things changed in 1440, when the Gutenberg press was invented. That was the period when the books began to be mass produced and mass published. Thanks to the invention of the press, the language started to flourish; for example back then there were about 50,000 English words, now there are about 1 million. That meant that people could express themselves in an easier manner, with much more ease. Reading and writing were no longer considered to be exclusively for the gifted ones, or for the priest, or for the people from the higher classes. Thanks to the printing press, the various genres of literature developed. During the 1700s the first romantic novels were written, as the paper was no longer considered to be expensive, and as a result the writers could afford using it for other genres as well. During these times the laws were written on the book, and a contract was considered to be much more important, than the “gentlemen’s agreement”, or the handshake which was used in the past. In the United States of America, reading became popular in the Eastern part of the country, especially in New England.
By 1910 one third of the countries from the United States of America had a well established school system and public libraries. Fast forward to our times, and the situation has changed a lot. Sure, the written books still exist, and words are still written in paper, but it seems that because of the technology, we are no longer interested in them. We have desktop computers, portable computers, smartphones, regular phones, and so on. Books are available for these devices as well, and it seems that more and more people prefer to read books on an electronic reader than in the normal way, as they used to. I could say that the televisions were the first one to change this, as we could read on them instead of the books, and things changed since then. During those times, the majority of the intellectuals believed that in the following 50 years, the levels of illiteracy will reach worrying proportions. They were wrong, because as surprising as it sounds, people read and write more than they did in the 1980s. In fact, the reading and writing levels has tripled since the 1980s, and that happened because of the internet.
There are more than a trillion pages online, and in it said that each day billions of pages are added. Persons write those pages, on their blogs, on their websites, and so on. However, many people have stated that what these people do is not reading, as they are not reading books, but they are reading from the screens. They say that the experience is completely different, as the screens make us look at them, and the process of reading from them is easier than the process of reading from a book. They said that in the case of the electronic readers, the process of reading the books is much more complex, as one is required to do more complex physical activities. Reading a book requires flipping the pages; reading from a touchscreen for example requires a much more ample movement. There is a constant interaction between us and the screens. Just think about all the games and consoles which require interaction, such as the Wii and the Microsoft Kinect. This has been presented in numerous movies and in numerous books: one will read by switching the screens with his hands. Think about Matrix, or Minority Report, where reading became an athletic activity.
The books were designed with the purpose of enhancing the mind. The screens are different, because they do not make you assimilate the information, they make you interact with it. For example you read about something on a website, and the subject interests you. You immediately start looking for it on other websites, trying to obtain as much information about it as possible. The books provided extra information through the footnotes, but the situation is very different in the case of the electronic reading. The technology has allowed us to do numerous things at once. For example while we listen to a song, we look for information about the ones who sings it, or while we look at a movie we look for reviews online. If we contradict with someone we might look for information online, and if we want to buy something we can find reviews of that product online.
Another difference between the books and the electronic reading is the fact that books were used in order to manipulate people, whereas the same thing can not be said about the online reading. You might say that anyone can spread false information online, especially on one of the biggest online encyclopedias: Wikipedia. Sure, that is true, but what is also true is the fact that in most of the cases the misinformation is corrected very fast, in a matter of minutes. The information from the books is very difficult to correct, for example you would have to wait for a new edition. Things have changed since the technology has developed, as we can find out information about a certain subject from numerous sources, especially from the official ones. In the past, people did not have this possibility, and what they read in the books was often considered the truth. Things have changed a lot since the development of technology, and one of the biggest changes occurred when the iPhone was released. It has numerous applications which can be extremely important and useful. For example if you go to the supermarket you can place the camera of the phone over the bar code of a product, and you will receive information about it, as well as reviews.
If you move the camera towards the sky during the night, you will receive information about the star, the constellation, and so on. The iPad is another device which might change things a lot. For example one of its applications allows you to keep the camera while you walk on a street, and you will see information about the street you are going through in real life. In the next 50 years we might obtain this information through our glasses, similar to the way in which the Terminator received information in the movies. The chips are getting smaller and smaller, and that might become a reality in the years to follow. In the future we might be able to obtain information about most of the things we are looking at. Looking at a building might result in written information about the history of the building, and so on. There are many people who are afraid that because of this, we will be watched similar to the way in which the Big Brother was watching people in George Orwell’s novel “1984”. The thing is that people are willing to share information about them; they loved to be “followed” online. Just look at all the people who desperately try to draw attention through Twitter. Things might be very similar, the only difference being the fact that instead of writing about us, we might provide video information about what we do.
