Booknote: Words Onscreen

Naomi S. Baron, Words Onscreen: the Fate of Reading in a Digital World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780199315765.

 

Genre: nonfiction

Subgenre: reading, books, library science, literacy, technology, education

Format: hardcover

Source: Hutchins Library, Berea College. It was recommended by a colleague.

 

This book looks at research on reading and how digital texts and devices can and do affect reading ability and habits. The book is arranged as follows: 

• A preface.
• Ten chapters.
• Acknowledgements, notes, and references. 

 

Baron looks at topics such as: texts going digital, how writing is reshaped digitally, physicality of reading, and the future of reading in a digital world. Baron finds that yes, reading digitally is different than reading in print. In simple terms, Baron shows with research that those who read digitally read less deeply and in a less focused way. This has implications for education. One consideration is for higher education where many schools are embracing e-book textbooks to lower costs for students. At least, that is the claim. If you ask some of our students in our campus here, e-book textbooks can be as expensive as print, but that is another subject for another time.  This is where open textbooks are hailed as a cost effective alternative, but again, at what cost to reading skill and focus? Baron looks at this and other reading topics. 

The book covers a lot of ground while keeping the focus on the act of reading. The book looks at various research studies, including Baron's own work, along with stories from various readers. The book itself is interesting, and it is a pretty easy read. This is a book that librarians and educators should read and consider the findings presented. I really liked it and recommend it.

4 out of 5 stars. 

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Additional reading notes: 

What the book asks: 

"Words Onscreen asks if digital reading is reshaping our understanding of what it means to read. The question sounds amorphous, but it has tangible substance and equally real fallout. I will argue that digital reading is fine for many short pieces or for light content we don't intend to analyze or reread. However, if eReading is less well suited for many longer works on ever for short ones requiring serious thought, what happens to reading if we shift from print to screens? Will some of the uses of reading (and, for that matter, writing) fall by the wayside? If so, with what implications for education, culture, and ourselves?" (xii). 

On PowerPoint: 

PowerPoint has had a cumulative effect on how we read onscreen. Experience with the program is leading us to expect that text accessed on any digital device is ephemeral. But (you may be saying), if a person wants to preserve some of that online content in durable form, why not print it out? Too often my answer is, 'Lots of luck'" (99). 

As if you did not have enough reasons to hate Amazon, Kindle, and other eReader services. This is an issue that concerns me, but there is little I can do about it short of just not using ebooks at all, which neither personally not professionally is a realistic option for me: 

"If you are a Kindle reader (or, increasingly these days, a user of almost any eReader), your privacy is compromised at the corporate level. Someone can track every time you open an eBook, every time you turn one of its pages, every time you make an annotation. Here the social reading relationship is not one you asked for but part of the Faustian bargain for reading onscreen" (130). 

More on privacy concerns: 

"What privacy do today's readers have? Given the ubiquity of credit cards, few of us think twice when we swipe our plastic at the physical or virtual register. For print books, at least we retain the option of using cash in a face-to-face transaction (assuming we have the time and shoe leather to track down what we are looking for in a brick-and-mortar store). With eBooks, all privacy bets are off. Someone knows everything you have bought. Amazon and its competitors also have a pretty good sense of what you've read, since they can trace each page you access. And if you take advantage of such handy features as highlighting, underlining, and jotting notes, every make you make is likely in their database" (150). 

 

 

Main purpose of the book: 

 

"The main purpose of this book is to move beyond arguments of nostalgia and habit to figuring out what it is about print and digital platforms that leads us to read on them in particular ways. But another goal is to understand the potential consequences of driving reading from print to screens. As we have seen, one effect seems to be privileging the search for data or information over reading for continuity of argument and reflection.  In the process, we steer readers (and authors) away from long-form writing to shorter pieces. And we replace the notion of owned, tangible documents with ephemeral access" (153). 

Why we need students able to do complex reading: 

"If we want students to be responsible voting citizens, they must be able to grapple with the issues, not just press an electronic lever. If we want them to be active participants in society, they have to understand its cultural and historical underpinnings, including its nuances. And for that, you need to do serious, roll-up-your-sleeves, focus-on-what-you're-doing reading" (168). 

Some books from the references list for my TBR list: 

• Adler, Mortimer, How to read a book. 
• Carr, Nicholas, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains.
• Chabris and Simons, The Invisible Gorilla: How our Institutions Deceive Us. 
• Jacobs, Alan, Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. 
• McGuire and O'Leary, Book: a Futurist's Manifesto. 
• Miedema, John, Slow Reading. 
• Mikics, David, Slow Reading in a Hurried Age.
• Piper, Andrew, Book was There: Reading in Electronic Times. 
• Radway, Janice A.,  A Feeling for Books: the Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle Class Desire.
• Turkle, Sherry, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other. 
• Ulin, David,  Lost Art of Reading.

 

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This book qualifies for the following 2020 Reading Challenge: