Well, I presume a non-voluntary reader is not going to particularly want to take a course on Dickens anyway… You could force them to regardless, thus artificially creating the need for them to acquire such skills, but you could do the same with anything.
I do agree that literacy is something one has to work actively to develop, and a very important skill to have, far more important than proficiency at math or athletics or computing or anything else. So I’ll grant that if there is a problem with children frequently not developing the basic abilities to read and write effectively, then this is an issue to be addressed, and if it’s the case that one effective way of doing so is by reading novels, then, by all means, have at it.
But beyond the simple establishment of the most basic reading and writing skills, there’s nothing in it to be specially proud of. If someone makes their way through school successfully literate, and then never again reads a single novel (the same way many, perhaps most, will never again do a math problem or a two-mile run or a science experiment just for fun after high school ends), preferring to spend their free time playing videogames or faffing around on the Internet, well, I don’t think that’s to be looked down upon as some kind of intellectually deficient diet. It’s just their entertainment form of choice. It sometimes seems to me, and presumably the OP as well, that there is a view of books as something like wholesome meals, but videogames, movies, whatever, as mere junk food. And that is really silly.
I think reading definitely has unique merits in terms of benefits to the reader, and encouraging reading is useful in the sense of that a lot of people are ‘afraid’ to read for some reason and getting them over the hump opens up a great new experience for them. But reading is not superior to other media in any kind of inherent way. Every time a new media comes along, the older media is touted as superior and the new one as corrupting. It’s just the way things are. When reading became popular, it was criticized as being inferior to the oral tradition.
The majority of human knowledge is still stored as writing. If you do not know how to read, analyze, critique and enjoy books, you will never become a well-rounded knowledgeable person. And since there is a bit of a learning curve, it’s good that kids learn these things early when their minds are open.
Print is a very economical way of conveying information. In order to adapt a novel into a movie, the screenwriter must first throw away much of the detail that made the novel such a rich and absorbing experience in the first place. By restricting yourself to movies or television, you’re settling for a drastically-simplified version of the story which - while it may be true to the spirit of the book - cannot hope to capture its full complexity or depth.
The same principle applies to non-fiction material, where a few pages of well-written prose can often convey far more information than an hour’s television documentary, and be absorbed in half the time.
Books are also comparatively cheap to produce, and that implies that authors will face less interference from the money men in their choice of subjects and how those subjects are handled. Movies and TV are so expensive to make that producers must always aim for the biggest audience possible, which in turn brings pressure to eliminate any material that doesn’t immediately appeal to the mass market audience. For that reason, books are able to cover a much wider range of subject matter and tackle their subjects in a far more sophisticated and intelligent way.
Writing is also the closest we have to telepathy, in that it allows a very direct communication between the writer’s brain and the reader’s. There are no budget restrictions cutting back the scale of what can be achieved, no directors interfering with the writer’s original vision and no egotistical actors fretting over whether their character is likeable enough.
As others have already pointed out, books also require the reader to contribute to the experience of creating their fiction, by adding his own imagination to the writer’s words. Any medium which makes you an active participant rather than a passive viewer is likely to prove much more satisfying in the long run.
Indeed. I was a business major in college; I still had to take two semesters of literature classes.
If you attended an extremely technical-based school for a technical degree (a DeVry, or something like that), I wouldn’t be surprised if you would be able to get away with not having to take an English or literature class. But, as others have noted, you’re still going to have to read an awful lot for your technical classes, even if it’s technically a different sort of reading.
Didn’t the “Nun Study” confirm a strong link between reading in early adulthood and reducing the probability of getting Alzheimer’s later in life? If so, that’s probably the best argument for reading.
Having said that, there’s also a whole slew of cultural references that come from authors, or particular books. Understanding why a state of affairs is Orwellian, or Machiavellian, or Quixotic etc. (and not looking like a yokel, when those terms come up in conversation :P) requires at least familiarity with the sources of those terms.
For me, I still go for reading HP, because I guess it makes my imagination go places that the book tells me. I loved the movies but If given a decision between reading or watching it, I’d go for reading.
The solution to that is to have several books you are working on at any given time so there is always something that you are reading =) I have one book on my cell phone, a different one on the kindle in the bathroom, yet another one on my netbook and a 4th on my desktop … so no matter where I am I have something to read. I have my library of ebooks loaded in storage media in each portable, and in the hdd of the asus and the desktop - so a minimum of 1000 books on hand at any given location. I can always find something to read =)
though I just peeked over at project gutenberg and there are even more books I dont have again … need to fix that.
So you are more visual that literate in your mental processing, my brother is like that [he shares my dyslexia but never learned to compensate so he really does not enjoy reading for long periods of time] I have a blind friend who prefers listening to ebooks instead of movies with the audio description service [though I dont blame him, some of the interpretations are difficult to concentrate on. I have deep sympathy for the visually impaired]
That would drive me absolutely insane … how could they NOT want to know who invaded … it would make a difference in how they went about guerilla warfare … if it was a culture like WW2 Japan, with that whole bushido/never surrender/fight until death outlook needs to be fought differently from a western country [hm, lets randomly pick the US] that has a tradition of allowing surrender, reasonably fair treatment of prisoners, probably wouldn’t shoot the kids out of hand if caught … or a muslim invader on a religous jihad that would maltreat any girls involved and would have no issue executing any kid caught out of hand and may possibly ignore the geneva conventions.
Did Japan ever sign the Geneva Conventions, or are they exempt because they dont have a military army, just a supposed internal security force?
To be honest, you learn to speak through osmosis. I challenge you to speak only ebonics and diagram a sentence in standard english without taking some form of formal english in school, which involves reading.
I learned french through self defense - when you are in Canada, and the only kids around to play with only speak french, you learn to speak french. It took taking french in school, and reading the paper and books to get the grammer down [and I still have issues with some of the tenses that are not in common use, or seem to be used in english,. I swear they have tenses invented for timetravelers … “I will possibly have had shagged the sheep next month” seems to be able to be expressed in like 4 words of some arcane tense called something like past pluperfect subjunctive dative … Ill stick with learning german thanks. ]
Right, I acknowledged this. Like I said, you can artificially create the need (to read Dickens or similar works), and we do, and there may even be value in our doing so.
Yes, that could directly support something like “Reading is good for you” in the contested sense, although I am unfamiliar with the study, and can’t actually find any reference that it says something like this; the most I can find is that “low linguistic ability in early life could be a subtle symptom of very early changes in the brain that ultimately lead to Alzheimer’s disease”, which does not seem to suggest that taking efforts to read will do anything to combat the progression of the disease. But this was on a very cursory search, and perhaps there’s some other aspect of the study I should be looking at.
Sure (albeit I imagine far more people display suitable familiarity with the sources of those terms through cultural osmosis than through actual first-hand exposure to the material; e.g., I’ve never read “The Prince” or “Don Quixote”, but I don’t think I look like a yokel when those terms come up in conversation). However, this doesn’t distinguish books from any other form of influential entertainment; there are also a whole slew of cultural references that come from movies and so on, which one would be extremely marked not to recognize. Granted, less, as books have been around a lot longer, but that’s not intrinsic to the medium.
However a liberal arts major is an excellent prep for spending a lot of time watching movies and playing video games after you graduate.
I would rank playing a sport or other athletic activity as being healthier than reading since it improves your physical fitness and is a social activity.
Reading is important in improving mental abilities because it actively engages your brain. Watching TV is a passive activity. It literally causes your brain to “zone out”.
Video games are better than TV because at least you are strategizing or improving your hand-eye coordination. But I think you are really better off going outside and playing actual sports with your friends.
It seems this thread has lead to a broad consensus that reading has some positive effects on kids, but video games and other alternatives do as well. I agree. Readings helps kids learn to read, write, speak, listen, think abstractly, evaluate morally and ethically, and philosophize. Computer games help kids learn to work with numbers, use logic, use spacial reasoning and so forth.
The key fact is that the two sets of skills are not of equal worth. The skills that come from reading are more important than the skills that come from math. Math skills have uses, but as a whole they are finite. Most people can survive their entire life with the math they learned in elementary and middle school. A few more may need calculus and differential equations. Professional mathematicians need more. But it ends at some point. Abstract algebra does not spill over into personal relationships or family life.
By contrast, the skills developed from reading are always important in all situations. There is no limit on how far those skills can advance or how much use they can be put too.
(For what it’s worth, I am a math teacher, so I’m not some Joyce-quoting snob who’s trying to belittle other fields of knowledge.)
IMO if you’re going to be an engaged, informed, active citizen of your country, reading is pretty dang important. News bytes are never going to get you a decent civic education.
um, get adopted? My brother gave it to me for Christmas, he knows I love ebooks … but I read on my moto 9m cell phone, so I really wish he hadn’t spent that much for a gift for me … but I’m not going to throw it away
Really, it is not the best design for a reader, but it isn’t bad. I do not like the little keyboard along the bottom, it affects how I grab it to pick it up and hold it, and the leather case for it sucks ass, it sort of gently tries to hold on by friction. If I was designing it differently I would have a rigid clamshell cover for it and put the keyboard in the clamshell side so you aren’t trying to hold it by the keyboard.
I just prefer reading on my cell phone, the screen is back lit so I can use it to read in the dark, and it is smaller and lighter to hold. And it isn’t an extra reading device to lug around.
