Internet Reading

When the mildly encouraging NEA results came out a while ago there was of course some chatter about why the numbers had gone up. Annoyingly, the NEA failed to look into this much, but the chairman seemed to think online reading wasn't responsible for the rise. There was some righteous harumphing at Booksquare about how backwards this assertion is, and how online reading is probably an important factor in increased reading stats. I've heard this kind of philosophy elsewhere to, and it's always seemed off to me. Kind of an overzealous attempt to be modern and tolerant, like those libraries who have video game tournaments to get kids in the door, as if their mere presence is worth something. It's the sort of tolerance that's effectively the same as apathy, although I suppose one seems slightly cooler when actively espousing postmodern ideals. It's undeniable that people are taking in a whole lot of the written word on the internet, and this at least seems encouraging, since only a few years ago everyone was worried that movies and TV would kill literacy completely. It's nice that people read news articles and maybe the occasional short story, that they read period instead of just watching. But I think the rise of the internet has much less intellectual value than is supposed, and I think it does almost nothing to aid the cause of books. I've felt sort of uncomfortable articulating this, not wanting to seem backwards myself, but then I came across a quote in a random nineteenth century manual for "Brain Workers" which expresses my feelings exactly. "The reading of newspapers [substitute blogs, online mags, etc.]," it says, "has made most of us very careless and slovenly readers. We have grown into the habit of glancing and skimming over the pages of books..." Reading a book and reading the occasional short story [read: fanfiction] online are not the same thing. So as not to seem like a broken record, I will just refer back to this post and reiterate simply: books are special. Book reading is a special kind of reading. And the internet could just as well destroy this elevated kind of literacy as it could help it.