|
|
Viewing How Would the World be if People Stopped Reading Books?How Would the World be if People Stopped Reading Books?
By gauchotexts
|
Imagine ... What would the world be like if people stop reading books? It's really alarming. Reading and writing will not become extinct, but some speculate that reading books for pleasure will one day be the province of a special 'reading' class. Imagine ... What would the world be like if people stop reading books? It's really alarming. Have a look below at the facts and figures. There's no reason to think that reading and writing are about to become extinct, but some sociologists speculate that reading books for pleasure will one day be the province of a special 'reading class,' much as it was before the arrival of mass literacy in the second half of the nineteenth century. It would be natural to infer from this that each generation reads more as it ages, and, indeed, researchers have found something like this to be the case for earlier generations. In 1937, 29% of American adults told the pollster George Gallup that they were reading a book. In 1955, only 17% said they were. Pollsters began asking the question with more latitude. In 1978, a survey found that 55% of respondents had read a book in the previous six months. The question was even looser in 1998 and 2002, when the General Social Survey found that roughly 70% of Americans had read a novel, a short story, a poem, or a play in the preceding twelve months. In August of 2007, 73% of respondents to another poll said that they had read a book of some kind, not excluding those read for work or school, in the past year. From the above data, it seems that the majority of the population is choosing other means of gaining information and entertainment over book reading. However, if over time, many people choose media like television and Internet over books, then a nation's conversation with itself is likely to change. This is why. A reader learns about the world and imagines it differently from the way a viewer does; according to some experimental psychologists, a reader and a viewer even think differently. A viewer would see from the eyes of the person who created the images and pictures, but a reader has to do his own thinking process and create a picture on his own. If the eclipse of reading continues, the alteration is likely to matter in ways that aren't foreseeable. It is very important to continue with the reading process and encourage the younger generation to continue reading habits. As the scholars Jack Goody and Ian Watt observed, it is only in a literate culture that the past's inconsistencies have to be accounted for, a process that encourages skepticism and forces history to diverge from myth. It may simply be that many Americans prefer to learn about the world and to entertain themselves with television and other streaming media like Internet, rather than with the printed word, and that it is taking a few generations for them to shed old habits like newspapers and novels. The alternative is that we are nearing the end of a pendulum swing, and that reading will return, driven back by forces as complicated as those now driving it away. About the Author: If you want to be one of the force that drives in the strong reading habits, then don't sit back and ponder, just do it ... go to http://www.gauchotexts.com and see thousands of books at one click. Search from the books, compare their prices, and order the book of your choice and at the best price! Article Source: 1st Rate Articles - http://1stRateArticles.com |
|