How Is Technology Changing the Way We Read?

There’s been a lot of disruption but is it for better or worse?

For several millennia reading was limited to a very select few. Books, scrolls and parchments were written by hand and were both prized and rare. Only a small percentage of people were able to read.

Then, in the 15th century, that began to change when Johannes Guttenberg invented the printing press. Literacy rates began to rise but progress was slow. However, the Industrial Revolution and the ability to mass-produce paper soon changed that. Education, news, and the rise of popular novels and literature soon became mainstream, leading to a correlating growth in things like libraries and bookshops. People discovered the joy of the written word.

The latest change in reading and literary consumption has now been underway for a couple of decades and it threatens to be as huge a disruption as any before. The internet and devices such as e-readers, smartphones and tablets have been dramatically altering the way we consume words.

The ability to access information and the written word has suddenly become more ubiquitous across the planet. This is a trend that continues to grow as more get access to the internet and mobile devices.

There are many who think the change to be a good thing and others who a growing increasingly concerned. Increased literacy and access to knowledge can surely only be beneficial. But the internet can also be distracting and full of disinformation.

The way people read is changing. But is it changing for the better?

The positive — convenience and ease of access to vast amounts of writing

This is the most obvious advantage. I love paper books but travel a lot. The ability to store and search for titles and information on a device I can carry everywhere is remarkable.

E-readers have the advantage that you can highlight sections and make notes. You can easily look up words you might not know or mark something to be researched.

Digital readers also have the huge advantage of being connected to the largest library ever available — the internet. From obscure academic papers to blockbuster novels, all can be downloaded in seconds.

I have hundreds of books in my house but I also have hundreds on my kindle for when I travel. For any avid reader, it‘s a life-changer and there is no longer the fear of not having anything to read.

Education has changed as information is delivered differently

Speaking as someone with a degree in English Language and Literature, my memories of education include carrying around a lot of books. That has now changed.

Not only are schoolbooks online but so are classes. There are a vast amount of degrees and even Master’s that can be done purely online. It is debatable how advantageous this is for students in terms of interaction, but the ability to carry around a device that contains hundreds of books is incredibly convenient.

Additionally, learning from these online books can be different as many are interactive and contain links to other sources and research. Students now have vast amounts of information at their fingertips.

Programs like Blackboard have allowed classes to continue when students can’t physically make it in. As has happened recently with the coronavirus. However, limitations to this type of learning are beginning to show.

News and current affairs

Modern news arrives in seconds. Previously, if something major occurred, there might be a news flash on the radio or TV. This obviously requires people to be tuned in. There are evening editions of newspapers but that still represents a possible delay of several hours.

Mobile phones in particular have allowed for instant news coverage, often with links, pictures and videos to help provide a broader picture.

Never in the history of mankind has so much information been available to so many people.

The big disadvantages to this are, however, becoming ever more clear. The different political biases of differing publications have always been a factor in the media but with the advent of social media and echo chambers, it is getting harder to read opposing points of view. There are negatives to all this technology.

The negative impact of technology on reading

Social media and information bubbles

As I mentioned before, while there is a lot of information available, how that knowledge is accessed or presented can cause problems. Continuing with the topic of news, technology has been revealed to be quite polarising.

Increasing numbers of people are switching to getting their news on social media as opposed to print newspapers. In fact, a study by Pew Research in 2019 found that that 43% of Americans get some of their news from Facebook.

This is worrying as Facebook, and other sites like Twitter, work by using algorithms that present what they think the user wants to see. As mentioned before, this can lead to information bubbles. The Wall Street Journal in 2016 to publish a graphic showing ‘Blue Feed, Red Feed’ that compared the results of this algorithm when the users were at different ends of the political spectrum.

Both Facebook, YouTube and, more famously in the latter years of Trump’s administration, Twitter, have tried to rectify this bias with fact-checkers and warnings, but it is an uphill struggle.

The extent to which these outlets are culpable for ‘damaging democracy’ is hotly debated but the polarisation of opinion is certainly not helpful when it comes to getting a balanced perspective.

Another problem with social media is that it consumes time that could otherwise be spent reading. An article in Quartz estimated that if you gave up social media and read instead, you could easily read 200 more books a year.

Distractions, hyperlinks and shallow reading

In a traditional printed book, the author has (hopefully) spent a lot of time researching and planning how to present the information. The reader will work their way through the book, focused purely on the text and information presented. They follow the lines of logic, reasoning and argument in the order it was written.

While this is still the case with some literature, increasingly things are getting more interactive. Hyperlinks to other articles or sources can take the reader somewhere else, even if just briefly, and this interruption can impede the flow. (I am aware of the irony posed by my links.)

This can lead to someone skipping around the internet and losing the thread of what they were reading. Getting lost down an informational rabbit hole is annoyingly common. Studies have shown that the average webpage is looked at for an average of 18 seconds.

Of course, reading and research on a device connected to the internet can be incredibly helpful with such a wealth of material just a link or two away. It can obviously be distracting but studies have shown it can also be detrimental to the quality of research.

A study of student reference citations in research papers in 2015 revealed that 46% of the citations came from the front page of Google. 77% featured in the first three pages.

This type of reading and studying is harmful to students for multiple reasons:

There is concern that the reliance upon shallow reading may interfere with the development of deep reading skills such as thoughtful pondering, critical analysis, and inferential thinking. It is feared that neurological connections required for deep reading such as brain areas involved in visual processing and phonological processing may not be made in those people who learn primarily via shallow reading (Loh 2015). Source: Psychology Today.

The disruption is finding a new balance

Print books are here to stay

In 2010 Amazon introduced its first e-reader and the publishing industry went into a panic. At first, this seemed pretty justifiable as at one point the growth trajectory was over 1,200%.

Then, things calmed down and in the last few years an equilibrium has been reached. In fact, there has even been a slight reversal with demand for printed books actually rising slightly in comparison to digital. This has been accompanied by a rise in independent bookstores.

There are a few possible reasons for this such as the rise of audiobooks and people suffering from screen fatigue. After all, reading a paper book is nice. It is still the preferred way to experience book and the most popular way that, for example, parents read to their children.

I have written about publishing traditionally versus self-publishing and this new equilibrium here:

Libraries are surviving but only those who adapt

Another concern brought by the rise of e-reading technology is the fate of libraries. Surely with access to the internet, they are doomed, right?

Not necessarily. The ones that survive have adapted. The demand for paper books has, as noted above, remained strong. What has changed is how long people stay in the library itself.

Modern libraries now have the technology that allow someone to search their database. Instead of searching the shelves for the book yourself, it is possible to order it and then simply pick it up. Librarians have reported that this facility has been on the rise.

Libraries are here to stay if they modernize.

Conclusion

In the space of a quarter of a century, the act of reading has gone through another upheaval. It is still going on but there are signs that a new equilibrium is being reached.

The amount of material available to read has never been greater but similarly, distractions have been more ubiquitous. The way information is accessed and studied has some teething problems but they are slowly being worked out.

The worries that books, book shops and libraries were going to disappear have proved unfounded. People still like to read the printed word. These days most software has the ability to block websites and distractions. Increasingly, people are discovering the joys of a good book with concepts like ‘Slow Reading’.

There are likely to be further disruptions as technology develops but reading will continue to flourish. Which is a good thing. In case you aren’t ready to put away your digital device, I will leave one final distraction. Thanks for reading.