http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/index.php/2008/07/28/another-great-piece-on-the-literacy-debate/ Exploring How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything Sun, 28 Aug 2011 14:21:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/index.php/2008/07/28/another-great-piece-on-the-literacy-debate/comment-page-1/#comment-159428 Gilbert Halcrow Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:04:13 +0000 http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/?p=1795#comment-159428 I think Shirky is on the money about Carr being more concerned with culture than reading. In terms of ‘classic literature’ and the values transmitted – reading and ‘high’ culture maybe indistinguishable. In the postmodernist mash-up; ‘the classics’ only use is to serve as a model as I copy or ‘sample’ their form or content to create my own literature. But who would want to write ‘the great Russian novel’ again? Who needs Anna Karenina when you have Britney and Lindsay and you can text and twitter about their frailty and insanity. When you can now define what they represent (villain, victim) to you by how you choose to ‘search and filter’. “Happy celebrities are all alike; every unhappy celebrity is unhappy in their own way” I think this whole reading argument is based on a false assumption that I challenge – it is the belief that reading (or the ability to read) long sections of text and draw knowledge from them is a capacity of intelligent people. If so how do we account for all the happy and successful dyslexics people who exist within our society? Or how do we account for all the stupid people who read a lot of books? Is reading deeply and widely, part of being intelligent or simple the byproduct of intelligent people’s learning before the Internet abbreviated knowledge? Isn’t intelligence more about recoqnise patterns (scientific, social, personal, etc) and being able to synthesis (create/problem solve) them to create new purposeful patterns? Is Google or Wikipedia really destroying that? Is skim reading/surfing destroying that? What so good about deep reading of extended text? Basic literacy standards is another issue and not what I a talking about here. Many people are bemoaning the loss of ‘reading’ books, but where is the proof that this is going to weaken society, make people less happy or end world hunger? One could well challenge that because of the Internet all those skim readers are more aware of global issues than earlier generations who had all these books to read? They are also very aware of Britney and Lindsay as well. The plethora of studies scoffing at students’ lack of discernment at recognizing reliable sources and inability to comprehend information are more indicative of our education system then the students. We use to go into libraries, where all that discernment had been done for us – students as young as 6, taught what to look for will discern quality/objective information from biased/unreliable content. They seem to discern pretty quickly the best sites for Halo 3 or GTA cheats! A lot of studies of how students understand websites are often conducted like old comprehension tests. My experience teaching a practical Media course is that students when presented with an authentic need to comprehend information not only acquire it faster but will offer various points of view on an issue or ways to undertake a production task – then when I sent them to the library to get one book! What we really should be investigating is not whether ‘depth of reading’ is decreasing, but whether it is diminishing our ability to come up with effective solutions to problems personally, socially and globally that challenge us. I think Shirky is on the money about Carr being more concerned with culture than reading. In terms of ‘classic literature’ and the values transmitted – reading and ‘high’ culture maybe indistinguishable.
In the postmodernist mash-up; ‘the classics’ only use is to serve as a model as I copy or ‘sample’ their form or content to create my own literature. But who would want to write ‘the great Russian novel’ again?
Who needs Anna Karenina when you have Britney and Lindsay and you can text and twitter about their frailty and insanity. When you can now define what they represent (villain, victim) to you by how you choose to ‘search and filter’. “Happy celebrities are all alike; every unhappy celebrity is unhappy in their own way”
I think this whole reading argument is based on a false assumption that I challenge – it is the belief that reading (or the ability to read) long sections of text and draw knowledge from them is a capacity of intelligent people. If so how do we account for all the happy and successful dyslexics people who exist within our society? Or how do we account for all the stupid people who read a lot of books?
Is reading deeply and widely, part of being intelligent or simple the byproduct of intelligent people’s learning before the Internet abbreviated knowledge?
Isn’t intelligence more about recoqnise patterns (scientific, social, personal, etc) and being able to synthesis (create/problem solve) them to create new purposeful patterns? Is Google or Wikipedia really destroying that? Is skim reading/surfing destroying that? What so good about deep reading of extended text? Basic literacy standards is another issue and not what I a talking about here.
Many people are bemoaning the loss of ‘reading’ books, but where is the proof that this is going to weaken society, make people less happy or end world hunger? One could well challenge that because of the Internet all those skim readers are more aware of global issues than earlier generations who had all these books to read? They are also very aware of Britney and Lindsay as well.
The plethora of studies scoffing at students’ lack of discernment at recognizing reliable sources and inability to comprehend information are more indicative of our education system then the students. We use to go into libraries, where all that discernment had been done for us – students as young as 6, taught what to look for will discern quality/objective information from biased/unreliable content. They seem to discern pretty quickly the best sites for Halo 3 or GTA cheats!
A lot of studies of how students understand websites are often conducted like old comprehension tests. My experience teaching a practical Media course is that students when presented with an authentic need to comprehend information not only acquire it faster but will offer various points of view on an issue or ways to undertake a production task – then when I sent them to the library to get one book!
What we really should be investigating is not whether ‘depth of reading’ is decreasing, but whether it is diminishing our ability to come up with effective solutions to problems personally, socially and globally that challenge us.

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