Reading Dead? Hardly

I just love reading stuff like this article. It seems the rumors of the death of reading (due to the rise in popularity of electronic gizmos, MP3s and YouTube) are highly exaggerated. In fact, quite the opposite is true. We're reading more than ever, due (ironically) to technology.

A study performed at the University of California, San Diego, found that "[r]eading, which was in decline due to the growth of television, tripled from 1980 to 2008, because it is the overwhelmingly preferred way to receive words on the Internet."

Well, yah. If you're using the Internet, I think reading would be the preferred way to get words off it. Unless you have some kind of audible Internet reader. (Does such a thing exist? Wouldn't surprise me, if it did. Kind of like Kindle's audible books function, maybe? But I digress.) Either way, whether read or heard, we're still reading (in the broader sense of receiving words, either visually or aurally) more than ever.

We're also writing more than ever, due to Facebook, Twitter and other social media. Um, even if what's written ends up looking more like secret code than prose. "OMG! ROFL!" and "C U L8R!" may not be the Queen's English, but it's a form of communication.

But here's my favorite part of the article:

"If you're reading thousands of words a day on a variety of devices, paper included, you need as much help as you can get in deciding which words to read. Ironically, the same technologies derided by some for contributing to a lack of literacy — Facebook and Twitter [and possibly this blog? just sayin' . . . ] — are full of recommendations of things to read.

"Technology may have truncated and warped the written word in some cases, while increasing competition for our time. But as borne out by this new data, technology hasn't found a substitute for the written word as a means of conveying certain types of information. And, in fact, it has made reading and writing even more essential parts of everyday life."

So whether it's in print, pixels or audio, we're still reading. Which makes this writer and reader very happy, indeed.

(Image provided by kirstiecat on flickr.com)