We’re in another round of concern about the “death of the book”, and, in particular, the claimed inability or unwillingness of young people to read full-length books.
No object matches the level of intellectual and emotional complexity one can get from a book. They have the intimacy of words that appear inside one's head and the scale of hours of one's time. But that's possibly a bit like saying nothing matches the structural strength of steel - it's only relevant if you're operating at a certain scale. Many people, today and always, don't operate at that scale. It's hard to make an argument that's a bad thing without sounding snobbish.
I would, however, argue that universities should operate at a "book level" of complexity. Textbooks and journal articles are fine for technical understanding, but I think a bachelors-level graduate should have gone deep enough to read a book from start to finish. Leave the other stuff to technical colleges. And academics don't need to write books, but I like to think they read them. If you're only reading articles, you're not challenging your ideas very deeply.
A lot of the reason young people have the subtitles on (and it's a reason I share) is because the way movies, at least, are recorded makes dialogue almost impossible to hear.
My son tells me it's because they're recorded to be listened to on multi-channel sound systems, and a hi-fi stereo just doesn't cut it.
When the movie PUBLIC ENEMIES came out and I attended a cinema screening of it, I found that the only participant who spoke invariably lucid English was the Frenchwoman, Marion Cotillard. So unintelligible were most of the other cast members that I felt alarmed enough - I was 46 years old at the time - to book a consultation with an audiologist the following week.
Surprise! The audiologist put me through a battery of tests and found that my hearing ability would have done credit to someone half my age. (Even then, I didn't go around nightclubbing, leaf-blowing, or listening to headphones at dangerously high volume levels.) So I was relieved to be able to put the blame for the script's predominant incomprehensibility (as for so much else) on Hollywood.
Anecdotal evidence (I can't claim to have researched the subject in depth) indicates that plenty of academics in my own field, namely music, are still able to get tenure without having published a single book.
Now admittedly some of these academics devote much time to producing specialist articles for refereed, peer-reviewed journals in the discipline; still others are 'rock star' lecturers who can actually get the kids to tear themselves away now and then from staring down at their phones, and the sheer scarcity of this talent in the profession ensures that the rock stars' jobs are pretty safe.
These facts having been conceded, though, it's surprising how many staffers in universities' music departments (whether in Australia or abroad) are neither prolific essayists in refereed journals, nor rock-star lecturers, yet still possess a remarkable amount of job security.
Although I don't know who invented the phrase 'publish or perish', I can tell you one thing for sure: whoever invented the phrase, it certainly wasn't a music department staffer.
All I can say, in general, I prefer written content. Audio and audio-visual material tends to have a lot of preamble and extraneous information before making any pertinent points. With written material, even if just a transcript, I can have it read and extract the relevant information (the pertinent points) in considerably less time than it takes to watch or listen.
I will, however, watch and/or listen to the parts I do not fully comprehend multiple times, in the hope of understanding the intent.
I speculate that some have difficulties like dyslexia, and others are lazy, and by lazy I mean not taught to enjoy reading or find it difficult to read as it takes them forever to process the written word. However, that is merely speculation.
Much as I love reading books myself, and lament the fall in popularity of book-reading, I do object to the conflation of arguments in some non-fiction books with peer-reviewed literature, especially when it comes to subjects like the economy and climate science.
Many people base their 'knowledge' of climate science on a book they've read. They will proffer the arguments as fact, without any realisation of the scientific method, or how facts are determined by climate (or economic) researchers. It can make countering misinformation much more difficult. I suppose it's because of the 'authority' automatically stamped on the contents of a book, in many people's minds.
I don't judge people who'd rather watch vid than read. I just happen to enjoy reading a whole lot more. Purely a matter of taste.
I used to worry when I'd see "death of reading" stories that there would be anything written for me to read, somewhere down the road. But then I remembered the libraries full of stuff that's already written, that I'd "love to get to someday."
I committed to reading two fascinating general/academic books this year. They’re fascinating but feel like slogs. Like an essay or AI summary would capture 90% of what I need and 100% of what I’d remember in a year.
I've noticed this tendency towards subtitles on the tv with my daughter. I had thought it was because of I leave subs on for late night viewing while not waking the house. But she will put subs on herself so she can divide her attention between the big screen and her ipad.
There used to be a preference for dubbing to subtitles with foriegn language films. Some young uns even comparied reading subtitles to reading a book, ie very uncool. I think this has changed for reasons given in the article and by other commenters. Good to know others have trouble following audio and its not just me and my ADHD.
There seems to be a solid floor for the demand for physical books despite the plethora of digital text. Ebooks are popular but if people who use them are like me they still buy, borrow, and read physical books and pass on the habit to their children. It is as easy to buy a hard copy book as an ebook unless you need it straight away. The death of booktopia has been indefinetly postponed which is good because I would rather eat my own leg than use Amazon. Search Pluralistic by Cory Doctorow to see the damage Bezos has done the US publishing industry. Dare I say it, good books are still being written and read despite this. To continue as the devil's advocate, the ease of finding and buying books along with the speed of delivery means that books have never been easier to own. Corporate censorship, as on Musk's twittex, doesn't seem to be a huge problem.
While JQ seems to focus on academic and other non-fiction books, I think that the appeal of long form fiction will never die. I have never been able to read non-fiction without my mind wondering after half a page. Uni was agony. Some kind of reverse thread rolling app would have saved me much anguish. Despite this I still buy non-fiction title I get through them in fits and starts but there is a hefty backlog,.
Parents are encouraged to read to their children as soon as they can focus their eyes and grasp a board book in their little hands, and studies suggests that a house full of overflowing bookshelves will produce more knowledgeable children. My ten year study, with a sample size of one, supports these strategies. Regardless, there will always be book readers and non book readers.
No object matches the level of intellectual and emotional complexity one can get from a book. They have the intimacy of words that appear inside one's head and the scale of hours of one's time. But that's possibly a bit like saying nothing matches the structural strength of steel - it's only relevant if you're operating at a certain scale. Many people, today and always, don't operate at that scale. It's hard to make an argument that's a bad thing without sounding snobbish.
I would, however, argue that universities should operate at a "book level" of complexity. Textbooks and journal articles are fine for technical understanding, but I think a bachelors-level graduate should have gone deep enough to read a book from start to finish. Leave the other stuff to technical colleges. And academics don't need to write books, but I like to think they read them. If you're only reading articles, you're not challenging your ideas very deeply.
A lot of the reason young people have the subtitles on (and it's a reason I share) is because the way movies, at least, are recorded makes dialogue almost impossible to hear.
My son tells me it's because they're recorded to be listened to on multi-channel sound systems, and a hi-fi stereo just doesn't cut it.
When the movie PUBLIC ENEMIES came out and I attended a cinema screening of it, I found that the only participant who spoke invariably lucid English was the Frenchwoman, Marion Cotillard. So unintelligible were most of the other cast members that I felt alarmed enough - I was 46 years old at the time - to book a consultation with an audiologist the following week.
Surprise! The audiologist put me through a battery of tests and found that my hearing ability would have done credit to someone half my age. (Even then, I didn't go around nightclubbing, leaf-blowing, or listening to headphones at dangerously high volume levels.) So I was relieved to be able to put the blame for the script's predominant incomprehensibility (as for so much else) on Hollywood.
Anecdotal evidence (I can't claim to have researched the subject in depth) indicates that plenty of academics in my own field, namely music, are still able to get tenure without having published a single book.
Now admittedly some of these academics devote much time to producing specialist articles for refereed, peer-reviewed journals in the discipline; still others are 'rock star' lecturers who can actually get the kids to tear themselves away now and then from staring down at their phones, and the sheer scarcity of this talent in the profession ensures that the rock stars' jobs are pretty safe.
These facts having been conceded, though, it's surprising how many staffers in universities' music departments (whether in Australia or abroad) are neither prolific essayists in refereed journals, nor rock-star lecturers, yet still possess a remarkable amount of job security.
Although I don't know who invented the phrase 'publish or perish', I can tell you one thing for sure: whoever invented the phrase, it certainly wasn't a music department staffer.
All I can say, in general, I prefer written content. Audio and audio-visual material tends to have a lot of preamble and extraneous information before making any pertinent points. With written material, even if just a transcript, I can have it read and extract the relevant information (the pertinent points) in considerably less time than it takes to watch or listen.
I will, however, watch and/or listen to the parts I do not fully comprehend multiple times, in the hope of understanding the intent.
I speculate that some have difficulties like dyslexia, and others are lazy, and by lazy I mean not taught to enjoy reading or find it difficult to read as it takes them forever to process the written word. However, that is merely speculation.
Much as I love reading books myself, and lament the fall in popularity of book-reading, I do object to the conflation of arguments in some non-fiction books with peer-reviewed literature, especially when it comes to subjects like the economy and climate science.
Many people base their 'knowledge' of climate science on a book they've read. They will proffer the arguments as fact, without any realisation of the scientific method, or how facts are determined by climate (or economic) researchers. It can make countering misinformation much more difficult. I suppose it's because of the 'authority' automatically stamped on the contents of a book, in many people's minds.
I don't judge people who'd rather watch vid than read. I just happen to enjoy reading a whole lot more. Purely a matter of taste.
I used to worry when I'd see "death of reading" stories that there would be anything written for me to read, somewhere down the road. But then I remembered the libraries full of stuff that's already written, that I'd "love to get to someday."
I committed to reading two fascinating general/academic books this year. They’re fascinating but feel like slogs. Like an essay or AI summary would capture 90% of what I need and 100% of what I’d remember in a year.
I've noticed this tendency towards subtitles on the tv with my daughter. I had thought it was because of I leave subs on for late night viewing while not waking the house. But she will put subs on herself so she can divide her attention between the big screen and her ipad.
There used to be a preference for dubbing to subtitles with foriegn language films. Some young uns even comparied reading subtitles to reading a book, ie very uncool. I think this has changed for reasons given in the article and by other commenters. Good to know others have trouble following audio and its not just me and my ADHD.
There seems to be a solid floor for the demand for physical books despite the plethora of digital text. Ebooks are popular but if people who use them are like me they still buy, borrow, and read physical books and pass on the habit to their children. It is as easy to buy a hard copy book as an ebook unless you need it straight away. The death of booktopia has been indefinetly postponed which is good because I would rather eat my own leg than use Amazon. Search Pluralistic by Cory Doctorow to see the damage Bezos has done the US publishing industry. Dare I say it, good books are still being written and read despite this. To continue as the devil's advocate, the ease of finding and buying books along with the speed of delivery means that books have never been easier to own. Corporate censorship, as on Musk's twittex, doesn't seem to be a huge problem.
While JQ seems to focus on academic and other non-fiction books, I think that the appeal of long form fiction will never die. I have never been able to read non-fiction without my mind wondering after half a page. Uni was agony. Some kind of reverse thread rolling app would have saved me much anguish. Despite this I still buy non-fiction title I get through them in fits and starts but there is a hefty backlog,.
Parents are encouraged to read to their children as soon as they can focus their eyes and grasp a board book in their little hands, and studies suggests that a house full of overflowing bookshelves will produce more knowledgeable children. My ten year study, with a sample size of one, supports these strategies. Regardless, there will always be book readers and non book readers.