Do we need a new word for "reading" on screens since it is a very different animal?

[BuddyBoy]

Wow.

11 pages of this and am I the only one feeling like you're all debating the benefit of feeding Irish babies to the rich a la Swift?

Isn't this a satirical burlesque highlighting the absurd campaign for the adoption of "liseuse" to replace ebook reader?

Tell me none of this was serious.

Oh lord!

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

Tell me none of this was serious.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by danbloom

okay, ardeegee, my good man, answer this, since you seem to have figured it out. WHAT IS MY TRUE AGENDA on this issue? Please type it out in a few sentences, I would LOVE to see what you think my TRUE AGENDA is. I will read what you say and then comment in one word comment. Go!

Okay, Dan, since you ask for it point blank, here's your true agenda.

You love books-- that is clearly established. You have made part of your living from writing, and had a few small publications in the past

http://www.amazon.com/Daniel-Halevi-..._athr_dp_pel_1

But you never gained the true fame as a writer that you dreamed of in your youth. You just barely scrape by selling your books one at a time on a street corner because they won't sell in stores

http://www.mobylives.com/Bloom_at_large.html

and you fear that even that means of earning money is endangered by the possibility of people buying their books electronically and not giving you the chance to do that face-to-face hard sell, getting people to buy your books because they don't want to be rude to you.

But you are feeling not only the hands of time, but the sort of isolation of being a "stranger in a strange land" in Asia even though you've been there for many years. You want a legacy attached to your name. First you attempted to gain a legacy on the internet by posting wildly hyperbolic global warming alarmism:

http://www.achangeinthewind.com/2007...oom-break.html

That hasn't seemed to work out for you, so now you are hoping to make a legacy out of being a lone voice in the wilderness crying out about how reading something from a screen is so bad and so detrimental to the way people think that children who grow up reading words from a screen instead of paper will no longer be able to think critically, which is baseless tinfoil hattery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_foil_hat and believe that, by being the person to submit "new words" to a popular web site for slang it somehow gives legitimacy to the words and to the concepts behind the words, and you really need to continue pushing that you are the one who submitted those words to the urban dictionary. Also, you believe that legitimacy rubs off on you when you e-mail famous or successful people and they reply to your questions.

Got your one-word comment ready?

[JasonB]

I'll admit that I only read the first and last pages of discussion here - I skipped over the middle 10 pages. So, what I'm about to say may or may not have been said. It probably has been, but I'm going to say it anyway just because I feel the need to respond regardless. <grin>

If we come up with a different word to describe reading on a screen rather than a book - then we can follow that argument to include reading a magazine, a billboard, text on a TV, text on vehicles that are moving swiftly by us, etc.

I find the whole question and debate pretty much a non-issue. In my opinion, there's absolutely no reason to introduce a new word at all. (Unless you think it might be "cool" - but that's not a good reason.) We read the same way regardless of what medium it is that we're reading. I can think of no good reason to introduce another word just for this one particular medium (as opposed to any others).

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

when you are into the material, the medium doesn't matter.

True indeed.

OTOH, the medium can impact whether you can get into the material in the first place. I don't mean the medium in the immediate sense - the paper vs. sandwiched glass issue. I mean the medium in the sense of being static or interactive. The former promotes focus, the latter promotes skimming.

Nothing wrong with skimming. I skim to find where I need to focus. But it seems pretty obvious that reading on computers makes it harder for me to focus, and interestingly, I've had two pieces of anecdotal evidence in the last two days supporting that point.

I have two sons in college. One remarked that he has learned that while reading on the computer, he cannot focus if he's connected to Facebook, because he keeps being "interrupted" by the need to check it. The other has lost his internet connection, and finds that it is easier to study without it.

This is one of the reasons I like having a dedicated ebook reader. I find it much easier to get into and stay in the material.

Bottom line is that I don't think that we necessarily read differently in different reading environments, but that different environments are conducive to different ways of reading. We ought to be aware of that in making our reading choices.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Jellby

That said, I've always been surprised at how easily English speakers turn any noun into a verb.

That's because we understand verbing. We verbalize all the time. Of course, we also noun some verbs. There are a lot of verbs that are still unnoun to us, though. And don't let us get started gerunding.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by kazbates

Frankly, the English language already has enough redundant words which muddy up the works when trying to teach vocabulary to young children.

We need all those words for poets to use. Teach young children poetry, and you won't need to teach them vocabulary.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by danbloom

A joker tells me:

The finer points of the mechanics of ebook/print reading and comprehension aside, I’d like to state the obvious: You will always retain more of a book you actually read than one you do not.

Obvious, but untrue. I suggest you read How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard. http://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Boo...tt_at_ep_dpi_1 Or better yet, just read the reviews.

Point being, I know a lot about many books I haven't read, and don't remember a damned thing about a lot of books I have read, to the point where I've occasionally reread something I hadn't realized I'd read before.

And all this is covered in Bayard's book. Just be warned that when you get to the end, you will have strong doubts about whether you have actually read the book you just finished.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by danbloom

BTW,

The current issue of the Wilson Quarterly features three essays concerning the future of the book.

Christine Rosen, “In the Beginning was the Word,” Wilson Quarterly 33 (Autumn 2009): 48-53 thinks the printed book has life in it yet and worries that the manner in which we now interact with the written word is not to learn from others but rather to share our opinions.

Tyler Cowen, “Three Tweets for the Web,” pp. 54-58 reflects on the nature of our use of the Web, placing it in the longer view of how we normally react to new technologies and is optimistic about the new digital texts.

Alex Wright, “The Battle of the Books,” pp. 59-64 gives us a history lesson about the book and sees new and more useful forms of it growing from the Web and other digital delivery systems.

I will now do something that can't be done with a book:

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cf...ion=wq.current

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cf...ssay_id=555218

[fugazied]

I'm not sure, LCD and CRT screens have been around for a long time now, have we created new terms for reading off those devices? What about television, when you read text off of that device is it a different word?

I suspect the answer is no. The English language is already convoluted enough without more largely redundant terms describing what is essentially the same behaviour - seeing and deciphering text and images.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Harmon

I have two sons in college. One remarked that he has learned that while reading on the computer, he cannot focus if he's connected to Facebook, because he keeps being "interrupted" by the need to check it. The other has lost his internet connection, and finds that it is easier to study without it.

But that isn't a fundamental difference in the medium-- it is a difference in the number of possible distractions, and in the volume of material that you can choose from.

There were studies a while back (not sure what key-words you'll need to google them up) that suggested that increasing the number of available choices in anything makes deciding much harder-- you have 3 flavors of ice cream available, and you might in a second decide what one you want-- you have those 3 plus a hundred more, and you might stand there staring at the menu for a half-hour.

It works the same way with deadtree books. You have one book, you can pick it up and read the book. You have a hundred books, and first you have to spend time picking a book-- then something in the book makes you think of something in one of the other books you need to reread, then... Even worse if you have a good set of encyclopedias, dictioaries, and thesaurii (or thesauruseses) around that you can pick up at the drop of a hat to search for a word or concept, which reads to other words and concepts, and other words and concepts... Access to Webster's and Britannica have always (defining "always" as "the time after those type books have been available") been as much of a time-swallowing distraction to the curious-minded as Wikipedia.org and tvtropes.org are today, and just as avoidable by those with the discipline to put them down (someone who isn't me.)

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

But that isn't a fundamental difference in the medium-- it is a difference in the number of possible distractions, and in the volume of material that you can choose from.

The fundamental difference lies in the immediacy of the distractions, coupled with the sheer number in the electronic world.

I certainly agree that there are distractions in the physical world, but in the electronic world, the distractions are the twitch of a finger away. In the physical world, the distractions are nowhere near as immediate.

Your observation of the number of distractions is important, too. In the physical world, the number of distractions immediately available with almost non-existent effort are not as great as in the electronic world.

I also agree with your observation about what I think of as the paralysis of choice. In fact, I limit the number of books I put on my reader at any one time for exactly that reason.

[BuddyBoy]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Okay, Dan, since you ask for it point blank, here's your true agenda.

You love books-- that is clearly established. You have made part of your living from writing, and had a few small publications in the past

http://www.amazon.com/Daniel-Halevi-..._athr_dp_pel_1

But you never gained the true fame as a writer that you dreamed of in your youth. You just barely scrape by selling your books one at a time on a street corner because they won't sell in stores

http://www.mobylives.com/Bloom_at_large.html

and you fear that even that means of earning money is endangered by the possibility of people buying their books electronically and not giving you the chance to do that face-to-face hard sell, getting people to buy your books because they don't want to be rude to you.

But you are feeling not only the hands of time, but the sort of isolation of being a "stranger in a strange land" in Asia even though you've been there for many years. You want a legacy attached to your name. First you attempted to gain a legacy on the internet by posting wildly hyperbolic global warming alarmism:

http://www.achangeinthewind.com/2007...oom-break.html

That hasn't seemed to work out for you, so now you are hoping to make a legacy out of being a lone voice in the wilderness crying out about how reading something from a screen is so bad and so detrimental to the way people think that children who grow up reading words from a screen instead of paper will no longer be able to think critically, which is baseless tinfoil hattery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_foil_hat and believe that, by being the person to submit "new words" to a popular web site for slang it somehow gives legitimacy to the words and to the concepts behind the words, and you really need to continue pushing that you are the one who submitted those words to the urban dictionary. Also, you believe that legitimacy rubs off on you when you e-mail famous or successful people and they reply to your questions.

Got your one-word comment ready?

Give the OPs immediate abandonment of this thread, I'd say you hit the nail dead on with the hammer with this analysis.

[ardeegee]

http://www.teleread.org/2009/11/11/d...-heart-attack/

[kazbates]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

http://www.teleread.org/2009/11/11/d...-heart-attack/

That's actually very sad and I wish him a quick recovery.
Although we might not agree with his premise, that doesn't mean we should wish him ill.