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https://freedium-mirror.cfd/https://medium.com/@TarynParker-Holmes/the-reading-crisis-has-nothing-to-do-with-screen-time-6ad4fe24191b>
“I was on the MBTA commuter from Providence to South Station last week when —
not for the first time — I noticed a distinctly contemporary phenomenon. Apart
from a middle-aged gentleman sitting down the car reading the morning paper,
almost everyone who was awake was glued to their phones.
So when I rummaged my library book out from my tote and opened it to start
reading, I felt weirdly embarrassed; like I was doing something unusual, almost
showy. I know this will seem laughable, but I felt faintly
brave. Like I was
doing something rebellious and indiscreet.
Today, I found that yet another reader has left me a comment on my story
Why
Aren't Remote Workers in the Library? to tell me that "nobody reads anymore."
Oh, the irony, right?
Medium alone has over a million paying subscribers. There's nothing else to do
here but read, so it's for precisely that pleasure which we subscribers are
paying. One of the platform's most successful independent publications, BAOS,
has an engaged community of
over one hundred thousand avid book devourers.
You can't build that kind of success — as the publication's owner, Anangsha
Alammyan, has done — on a corpse.
And yet "books and reading are dead" has become one of those stock comments
that infiltrate conversations without anyone really questioning it. Folks just
nod along. They repeat it as if it's a cultural fact, robustly supported by the
evidence.
But is it?”
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
