Reading Techniques as a Result of Technological Advancement and a Shift in the Notion of Knowledge

This was a piece I wrote for a digital literature class back in early 2013. It is NOT PEER REVIEWED, and was simply an assignment that was submitted. I believe the assignment was to be a reflection on the piece "Too Dumb for Complex Texts" by Mark Bauerlein (which can be accessed here: http://www.goo.gl/kWA2RJ). Nevertheless, it still contains a lot of concepts that have stayed with me throughout my studies. Publishing my pieces here I am hoping will provide a conceptual background to understanding some of my future work, and also a fun way of disseminating non-peer reviewed work for others to engage with and critique. With those disclaimers out of the way, here it is.

Reading Techniques as a Result of Technological Advancement and a Shift in the Notion of Knowledge
Written by Kris Jones February 2013.

The field of computers and the ways in which society utilizes them is a rapidly transforming area that appears to advance by leaps and bounds in extremely short periods of time. The theoretical implications surrounding this area are equally as varied and in states of flux as the area itself. Some believe that new technology will propel individual learning to new heights, bringing along with it societal advancement. Others believe that the shift to a reliance on computers and movement of previously exclusively analog media into the digital realm is destroying the ways in which people engage with and comprehend text. While there are valid points made for both arguments, I think that the use of computers and technology enable society in some ways, and may serve to hold us back in others. In any case, the use of computers and technology for a variety of functions is unlikely to revert back to analog in the foreseeable future, which makes critical looks at the potential of both positive and negative outcomes of computer and technology uses extremely important.

The development of the computer and the internet has undeniably changed the ways in which we as a society engage with media and text. If you look at the structure and design of most content on the web, it is designed with the intent of conveying messages quickly and efficiently. Large blocks of text are minimized, content heavy video is condensed into a few minutes, and links are everywhere. It would be naïve to think that engagement within the medium of the internet would have no effect on the ways in which we approach content at least on the web. The setup and design has facilitated the development of skills that enable skimming text for relevant and useful information, then moving to the next piece of information. The constant thought process of moving to the next page for information is proposed to have also had an effect on the length of attention span that people have today. Whether the same approaches leech into traditional analog forms of reading and engaging with media is a more uncertain concept.

It is argued by Mark Bauerlein in his essay “Too Dumb for Complex Texts” (2011) that the digital age has generated and enforced detrimental behaviors and thought patterns within the students who have grown up within the digital culture. Within the essay, some of the detrimental characteristics of the web generation include a tendency to skim longer texts, a predisposition to multi-tasking, and a potential over-confidence in their own opinion. Bauerlein outlines three main areas in which students of today are lacking: a willingness to probe, the capacity for uninterrupted thinking, and a receptivity to deep thinking (2011). These three areas are the areas affected by the previously mentioned three detrimental characteristics exhibited by the web generation respectively. While the arguments made within his essay are legitimate concerns, it seems that the author assumes that because the web encourages the characteristics discussed, that the youth of today approach all reading with the same methods in mind, when in actuality they may approach a physical book differently than they approach something like a web page or Youtube video. Different mediums are afforded different reading techniques, and it is important to differentiate between situations that require each technique. Perhaps this is an underlying issue that has yet to be addressed – children need to be explicitly taught both techniques and instructed on the proper contexts within which to employ each technique. Confusion within children of when to apply each technique with a lack of prior training could be perceived as a deterioration within youth of reading skills to someone who was originally rooted and trained in reading within an analog context. Until the differentiation between reading within each medium has been acknowledged to the point of also becoming instituted within formal education systems, the problems with reading and attention span will continue to be pointed out as a negative consequence of using computers and new technology within reading and educational settings.

In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (2008), the author Nicholas Carr mentions several classical examples of new technology bemoaned by academics as somehow detrimental to reading or society. Socrates denounced the development of writing as discounting what was previously knowledge contained within one’s mind by simply being able to write it down. He was concerned that the development would lead to a discounted knowledge due to the quantity of information that would be easy to disseminate. The printing press also received staunch criticism in the same stream, in which opponents to the press were confident that the use of such a machine would lead to an overall weakening of the mind. The historical arguments presented within the essay appear peculiarly similar to the argument that the development of the computer and the internet stands to change the ways in which society engages with and reads text through a weakening of the processes traditionally involved with reading. If we as a society were to take the accusations against the internet seriously on those grounds, we would have to go back much further than the invention of the computer in order to reverse the trend.

Something that should be considered when reading much of the reviews, opinions and rhetoric surrounding developments or changes in thinking through the use of new digital mediums is the author’s background and stance within the digital realm. It is useful to think of people in terms of digital natives and digital immigrants, phrases coined by Marc Prensky (2001). The term digital native refers to someone who has grown up using the new technology such as computers and the internet. The term digital immigrant therefore refers to anyone who came into the digital age as it was developed, later in life. Digital immigrants have seen the world both before and after the move to computerization and digitization, whereas the digital natives have known nothing else. Given that the movement to widespread use of computers and the internet for a variety of uses has only occurred quite recently, many of even the earliest digital natives are still in their mid to late twenties. Where then has the theorizing within academia about digital media and the use of computers come from? Much writing that has been done on the subject would have to have been done by digital immigrants, who have moved gradually into the digital realm, and likely have had different experiences than those of a digital native. These experiences with the technology can shape each person’s opinion of the medium, and to someone who is used to completing a task in a specific medium (analog) who then attempts to achieve the same goal in another medium (digital), may encounter hiccups in the process, which can produce frustration. These past experiences with emerging technology serve to shape the opinion of the new technologies by the digital immigrants, which may also color their writing on the subject should they choose to write on the topic of digitization and the use of technology. As a result of this, digital immigrants are likely to compare the ways in which technologies are used to the ways that they wrote and read texts before the shift. Because they learned to engage with texts in a particular way, and may have encountered difficulty with the new media, the traditional methods would be seen as superior to the new media. This same experience may not be echoed in the experience of the digital native, who may in fact look favorably upon new media as opposed to traditional media. In the end, I think that it comes down to education and the ways in which people are embedded within technology and the position from which they approach the new technology.

On the specific question of “is Google making us stupid?”, I think that the notion of knowledge is changing. We are at a point in society where fields of study are becoming increasingly specialized. Knowledge today is not necessarily the ability to recall specific facts and figures from memory, but the ability to quickly access that information for use. This notion should not discount the idea that knowledge should simply not be retained to any extent within the mind, but that not all knowledge requires the same recall ability in each person’s mind. The situation described here is reminiscent of Socrates and his opinion of the development of writing discussed in the essay by Carr (2008). While there was never a true shift away from retaining knowledge in the mind due to the development of writing, the knowledge that was documented through the new technology could be recalled more easily by anyone possessing the skills to read, as well as enabling easier dissemination of knowledge. This shift moves the development of writing further into a realm of text that is searchable. The shift in what is considered knowledge in turn has an effect on how we read information, as in this paradigm of knowledge, Google acts as a knowledge source on demand. For this use, the ability to skim for relevant information is an extremely valuable asset. At the same time, while knowledge as a concept may be in a transition, this should not downplay the importance of being able to read content in more depth and with the ability to comprehend what one reads. The two techniques of skimming for relevant information and reading for depth and understanding are important for a well-rounded individual. The two techniques are also used for different purposes, which could give the technique of reading for depth and understanding new purpose. This type of reading is important for overall development of complex ideas while the search and skim technique is important for finding information for immediate use within a specific context. For these reasons, I believe that Google in conjunction with the search and skim technique allows us to be more actively knowledgeable and useful in a variety of contexts, while the ability to read for comprehension allows us to formulate sophisticated ideas on broader issues.

In conclusion, do I think that the ways in which we read have changed as a result of the increased use of computers and new media? Of course I do. Do I think that the changes that have occurred are detrimental? I disagree that the change in reading style and attention span has had an overall negative effect on all reading. A technique has developed over time for reading on the web that facilitates quick reading and jumping from page to page, but I am cautious about suggesting that this technique has had a great effect on reading within other mediums to a large degree. The medium affords the use of different techniques, which are useful in different contexts. There is an important differentiation of useable techniques that must be made when approaching texts within digital and analog media, which may still need to be realized and implemented within education systems before the perceived problem of deteriorating reading ability is eliminated. The shift in the notion of knowledge is also important to the development of theory surrounding reading digital texts and the perceived deterioration of reading skills. In the end, I don’t believe that there has been an overall deterioration of reading skills or attention span in general due to the adoption of computer technology, however these characteristics are within the skillset that allows for efficient use of computers. It is therefore important to differentiate situations in which the skillsets for reading new media should be employed from the situations in which traditional reading techniques should be utilized.

References
Bauerlein, M. (2011). Too Dumb for Complex Texts? Teaching Screenagers, 68(5), 28-33.

Carr, N. (2008, July/August). Is Google Making Us Stupid? The Atlantic.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On The Horizon, 9(5).