Talk:Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Types of reading

In my first (cough cough) reading of the import, I found myself searching for a clear differentiation among deep reading, literary reading and screen reading. Is literary reading merely reading from paper? --Howard C. Berkowitz 02:02, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

You got me, myte. What about the Reading Railroad? That's why we Editors and Authors are here -- to furnish explications du texte (or du sexe as the case may be).... Hayford Peirce 02:28, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Some comments from one of the main authors of the original article, sent to the Constabulary

Hi, Mr. Peirce,

Thanks for uploading the article! I will probably not be participating in its further improvement as I'm really too close to the subject at this point and need a break. The broader subject of screen reading, however, does continue to interest me.

I did notice a few formatting issues with the CZ article which I thought I would share with you if you don't mind, obviously part of the de-WPizing process you mention: a) the references with multiple citations are not showing up, probably because of a template issue; b) the picture of a Malling Hansen-Writing Ball needs to be uploaded; c) The Charlie Rose Show should be italicized.

I also noted a discussion on the talk page. It's a great question Howard C. Berkowitz poses. Literary reading, literary culture, and technical reading are probably in a similar category, while screen reading and print reading are in another category with deep reading being one of the questions that that contrast raises. I don't have my own concrete definitions for these terms, but I'd like to see someone try to hammer ones out. Here's my try off the top of my head:

literary reading: wikipedia doesn't have an article about this, nor literary culture, and I don't quite have a good grasp of what the consensus definition of these terms are. Intuitively, I think literary culture is the set of literature that is widely respected while literary reading is the reading of such literature which engages different cognitive faculties than say, technical literature. If Citizendium started an attempt at writing articles about these terms that would be commendable. Maybe you guys could find some experts on the subjects of literary reading and literary culture to help out.

technical reading: reading technical literature which engages a different reading process, involving scientific and computer programming literature and so on, while literary reading involves metaphors, references to other literature, and so on.

screen reading: a very interesting topic, mostly considered in contrast to print reading. screen reading is reading on a screen, such as a laptop, a kindle, and so on, while print reading is reading texts on paper in its various forms. The study of the differences between the two is a burgeoning field given the popularity of the kindle and other new gadgets out there.

deep reading: coined by Sven Birkerts in the 90s, given a cognitive definition by Maryanne Wolf in the 2000s, and used by Nicholas Carr following his interview with Wolf prior to the publication of his essay. How deep does one read on a screen considering the distractions & etc, in comparison with a book? That's one of the biggest applications of the concept of deep reading.

(signature of so-and-so) Hayford Peirce 04:33, 16 February 2010 (UTC)