Subject:
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Re: Reading in steep decline?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 8 Jul 2004 19:04:49 GMT
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Viewed:
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642 times
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"Larry Pieniazek" <larry.(mylastname)@ascentialsoftwareDOTcom> wrote in
message news:I0JqsJ.8C7@lugnet.com...
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks wrote:
> > > Something else I should have asked in my other note...
> > >
> > > What counts as reading? If I get a CD with someone reading the Illiad • to me,
> > > does that count? Obviously, I'm not engaged in the specific physical • act of
> > > parsing written language, but I am exposing myself to literature. I • do, in
> > > fact, listen to books on tape and CD while driving.
> >
> > It doesn't count as reading while driving unless the book is propped • open on the
> > steering wheel.
>
> That doesn't count as reading either!
>
> ... but it does count as evolution in action.
Not if the reader is driving a Humvee...
Reading really is a set of skills:
1. interpreting a set of glyphs into language
2. parsing language into ideas
3. extrapolating the ideas (i.e. imagining what thinks look, sound, smell
like etc.)
4. learning something from the ideas presented
You could come up with more things.
A book on tape eliminates item 1, and part of item 3 (since the voices in
the story are at least in some way extrapolated for you), but I would say
that most of what is valuable about reading still remains (and I think 3 and
4 are the main value, though 2 is important also, 1 is of less importance).
Watching a movie adaptation of a book is almost always inferior in terms of
brain exercise since 1 is eliminated, 3 is dramatically curtailed, and both
3 and 4 are affected by the material cut or changed to suit the different
format.
Surfing the web varies of course. The kind of surfing I do is text intensive
so I would say it generally counts as "reading" though the complexity is
often less, on the other hand, I have to do my own weighing of different
opinions since much of what I do is sort of research oriented. Surfing for
pretty pictures would not be "reading".
A direct brain interface would presumably allow sharing of more than just
language. This would reduce 3 quite a bit. 1 and 2 would be replaced with
interpreting the brain feed (which I'm sure is not the same for everyone, so
this may not be as easy a task as one might think - it could turn out to be
a harder skill than reading). Of course the presumed efficiency would allow
far more information to be shared, so the potential for learning is greater.
One real question though on the whole efficiency thing. Does the generally
slow speed of reading or listening to dictation actually facilitate 3 and 4?
I know the deeper the material I'm reading, the slower I read.
Frank
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