Reflecting on the way we read.

   Imagineanentire20chapterbookthatiswordedlikethis,nospacesorinterruptionsbetweenwords. Infuriating right? Well, as Mr. Kevin Kelly points out in his article "Reading in a Whole New Way," he states that until the 10th century, books and sentences, in general, were being written like that. Now that may seem like a long time; however, that was only about 1000 years ago, give or take, and if books were read like that now? I promise you I wouldn't dare pick up a book. Mr. Kelly's article talks about how drastically we read today and how it may not be such a bad thing. While reading on screens leads to action more than ordinarily persuasive books, sometimes action isn't bad. The article also does an excellent job of laying out the advantages both media provide while arguing that reading on screens isn't as bad as it is usually portrayed. Mr. Kelly also provides some rather interesting statistics to show that reading on the screen is much more productive, stating: "By 2008, more than a trillion pages were added to the World Wide Web, and that total grows by several billion a day. Each of these pages was written by somebody. Right now, ordinary citizens compose 1.5 million blog posts per day." 

    On the other hand, Annie Sneed makes an argument in her article "Everything Science Knows About Reading On Screens" That while more people are reading and writing, it's actually creating bad habits in the readers. She states that a study by San Jose University found that more people are now prone to "skimming" or glimpsing over the words of an article. Instead of reading it entirely, they read what seems to be the essential information and skim over the rest of the article. This leads to potentially missing important information and a decline in sustained attention when reading online articles.  

    To briefly discuss my experience writing a letter to my mom last Thursday, I have to say there are some rather obvious advantages and disadvantages to our society going virtual. One drawback would be that a text doesn't hold the sentimentality as a letter, especially one written from the heart. However, going virtual saves time, effort, and hand cramps and provides easier access to communication. If I had to write this blog by hand.... I probably would have been here for 4 or 5 hours at least. We lose some sentimental feelings from not writing a letter; however, virtual communication lets our society talk to each other much more freely.