Wednesday, December 7
Reading Comprehension & Blogs
Steven over at Library Stuff has an interesting post titles Snippets.
The question is whether or not Google Book Search will be bad for literacy ... personally I think assuming that it will is just plain silly ...
Steven quotes a blog post in the Washington Monthly that I'd like to comment on:
It's not just that I spend less time reading books, it's that I find my mind wandering when I do read. After a few paragraphs, or maybe a page or two, I'll run into a sentence that suddenly reminds me of something — and then spend the next minute staring into space thinking of something entirely unrelated to the book at hand. Eventually I snap back, but obviously this behavior reduces both my reading rate and my reading comprehension. Is this really because of blogging? I don't know for sure, but it feels like it's related to blogging, and it's a real problem. As wonderful as blogs, magazines, and newspapers are, there's simply no way to really learn about a subject except by reading a book — and the less I do that, the less I understand about the broader, deeper issues that go beyond merely the outrage of the day.
I don't think this has to do with blogs ... well at least not for me ... I've always had poor reading comprehension ... in my case it's impatience and a strong desire to multi-task at all times. This was the case way before there were blogs ... before I even had access to the Internet. How did I major in Literature you ask? Well I went back through the books after I read them and found the passages I vaguely remembered and re-read them to see if they fit with the topic of my paper. This is why I love the idea of Google Book Search so much - not because I only have the time to read snippets, but because I only have the memory for snippets. If I had something like this in college I would have been able to easily find that passage I was looking for and then go to my book and re-read it.
I'm ashamed to admit that I rarely read newspapers - I guess it's that whole patience thing - blogs have made it so that I can read about the news that interests me. Yes blogs post that news in snippets ... but I always always always click on the links that lead to the full article - so in the end I've no only read the article, but other people's opinions on the article - which you don't get from a newspaper.
I feel as if I'm rambling on a bit, but the point is that (for me at least) Google Book Search & Blogs are not going to be the ruin of literacy ... in fact (maybe I'm being optimistic here) they seem to be bringing information about news & books to more people.
The question is whether or not Google Book Search will be bad for literacy ... personally I think assuming that it will is just plain silly ...
Steven quotes a blog post in the Washington Monthly that I'd like to comment on:
It's not just that I spend less time reading books, it's that I find my mind wandering when I do read. After a few paragraphs, or maybe a page or two, I'll run into a sentence that suddenly reminds me of something — and then spend the next minute staring into space thinking of something entirely unrelated to the book at hand. Eventually I snap back, but obviously this behavior reduces both my reading rate and my reading comprehension.I don't think this has to do with blogs ... well at least not for me ... I've always had poor reading comprehension ... in my case it's impatience and a strong desire to multi-task at all times. This was the case way before there were blogs ... before I even had access to the Internet. How did I major in Literature you ask? Well I went back through the books after I read them and found the passages I vaguely remembered and re-read them to see if they fit with the topic of my paper. This is why I love the idea of Google Book Search so much - not because I only have the time to read snippets, but because I only have the memory for snippets. If I had something like this in college I would have been able to easily find that passage I was looking for and then go to my book and re-read it.Is this really because of blogging? I don't know for sure, but it feels like it's related to blogging, and it's a real problem. As wonderful as blogs, magazines, and newspapers are, there's simply no way to really learn about a subject except by reading a book — and the less I do that, the less I understand about the broader, deeper issues that go beyond merely the outrage of the day.
I'm ashamed to admit that I rarely read newspapers - I guess it's that whole patience thing - blogs have made it so that I can read about the news that interests me. Yes blogs post that news in snippets ... but I always always always click on the links that lead to the full article - so in the end I've no only read the article, but other people's opinions on the article - which you don't get from a newspaper.
I feel as if I'm rambling on a bit, but the point is that (for me at least) Google Book Search & Blogs are not going to be the ruin of literacy ... in fact (maybe I'm being optimistic here) they seem to be bringing information about news & books to more people.
