[Fat Abe]

One thing we should consider is how any work of literature will be consumed. I wanted to start a thread called: The Semi-Ugly Truth: Ebooks vs. Audio Books. There is a disturbing trend in libraries that offer more audio editions of a book than ebook versions. Those who like to read words on a page are relegated to borrowing pbooks. We are becoming the minority. The educational standards in the states are going to pot. Young people spend more time watching TV and playing games than reading. Their ability to read quickly is diminishing, and their vocabulary and spelling are juvenile. A well-educated person should be able to read at least 10,000 books in a lifetime. These future generations may barely reach the same level of literacy as their predecessors. Books will be spoon fed to them in audio or audio-visual mediums, very likely on a mobile device. The device could even be modeled after Google glasses. Boys and girls who have trouble reading long sentences may have their books colorized, to highlight keywords. Lol. Now, the decline in reading may not even be related to literacy. Shifts in future occupations may be focused on technology, where expertise in a programming language is more important than knowledge of a social language. This is a world where Java or C++ are the lingua franca, not English or Chinese. Artificial Intelligence could combine language and math into a new paradigm for communication. Genetic engineering may compensate for the decline in S.A.T. scores. In any case, books will be regarded differently in the future. Whether the wisdom of the ages is preserved is unknown.