
Our Bookless Future - jseliger
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/our-bookless-future/
======
TheOtherHobbes
This is really missing the point, IMO. The difference between paper print vs
digital "print" is not the issue. The problem is more that TV, movies, social
media and YT have created a post-literate culture where the primary model of
communication is visual and emotional, not textual and abstracted.

That culture is extroverted rather than introverted, geared towards triggering
simplistic emotional responses rather than exploring complex arguments with
nuance, and actively hostile to abstraction and focused deep insight.

This mode has always existed, but long-form writing used to offer a potential
refuge from it. Without a strong written culture that refuge ceases to exist.

~~~
greggman3
TV series might not be as long as books but all the multi-year long series
people put however many hours into them as the series was long. Breaking Bad
had 62 episodes, average 45 mins each = 46hrs of watching that show. That
feels like more time than most novels.

~~~
CuriousSkeptic
The amount of people who have the means to produce a TV-series is probably
smaller than those who could write a book though

------
burlesona
A lot of comments are debating the important of physical reading versus screen
reading. I think that’s actually missing the point.

> “Behind our screens, at work and at home, we have sutured the temporal
> segments of our days so as to switch our attention from one task or one
> source of stimulation to another. We cannot but be changed.”

This part rings true for me.

Last summer I read Cal Newport’s “Deep Work” and then “Digital Minimalism,” in
which he gets very into this topic of hypermedia and distracted living. It
greatly influenced my thinking about how I use my time, and made me more
conscious of the need to focus and actually be present with one activity at a
time. This has greatly increased my productivity and lowered my stress level,
so I highly recommend it.

Newport argues that a lot of what is “wrong” with today’s computers (in every
form factor) is the very thing that makes them so useful: they can do so many
things. So unlike a paper book, which is really only for reading, a screen is
for displaying all kinds of things, and if we are reading on a screen with
notifications turned on then we’re probably reading distracted which means we
aren’t reading well.

I read almost exclusively on my iPad or phone. I find it quite comfortable to
sit on the couch and read from either device, but I prefer the iPad (mini).
When I occasionally still read a paper book I find the experience is really no
better or worse than reading on the iPad, except that the iPad has hundreds of
books stored in the space and weight of a single magazine.

However, I do think one reason the experience is qualitatively equivalent it
is I don’t do a whole lot _else_ on my iPad, so I don’t find it to be a
distracting device. I associate it with reading.

Another relevant book on this topic, “Moonwalking with Einstein,” is all about
memory. That book essentially makes the case that (educated) people in the
pre-internet era had to hold a lot of material in their heads, because you
couldn’t google stuff, and so everyone practiced using their memory more,
committed more “important,” things to memory, and generally did a better job
retaining things they learned.

All of these are interesting, complex side effects of the internet and the
ever more ubiquitous computer, and I think there is a lot for us to think
about here. On a personal level, we have some opportunity and perhaps
obligation to ensure our lives are enriched by these technologies and push
back on the negatives that come with them. But just FWIW, I don’t think trying
to switch back to only reading on paper is, by itself, the answer :)

~~~
stevenkkim
I agree with your points about distraction, and I think "Deep Work" is a
critically important book. That said, it's easier said than done.

I only have one iPad and I do use it for many things including work, and it is
shared with family members. That makes it full of distractions.

I have thought about getting a second iPad dedicated to reading, but since you
can't uninstall Safari, I feel I'm going to end up getting distracted by the
Internet. I'm not confident I have the self-discipline to never go on the
Internet when it's just a tap away.

I do think having an iPad-like device with no functions except a book reader
would be an interesting product.

~~~
robin_reala
But aren’t you talking about an ebook reader like a Kobo or a Kindle then?
They exist already.

~~~
stevenkkim
I have both, and they are just too slow. I think if I were reading fiction
page by page, it would be fine. When I read non-fiction for learning, it's
very difficult to skip forward/back, re-read sections, highlight/annotate,
flip to the footnotes and back, jump to the table of contents and back, etc.
All of these actions are frustratingly slow on the Kindle or Kobo. The iPad is
fast enough to make a good reading experience. But the distractions.

~~~
DennisP
Annotating on the Kindle is a real pain but looking up footnotes is quicker
than a book with end notes. Highlighting is a bit slower but has the advantage
that you can export all your highlights in a pdf or spreadsheet.

------
sq_
This line from the article really caught my attention:

> In sum, Wolf says, the paper reading brain has better memory, more
> imagination, immersion, and patience, and more knowledge than the screen
> reading brain.

I've been torn for years about how to feel about my reading and writing
habits. I love reading physical books, especially when I'm trying to develop a
deep understanding of some topic, and I have, at times, made concerted efforts
to take notes on paper and keep my daily schedules and to-do lists in
notebooks. But at the same time, I love reading the articles and other types
of content that are surfaced by users here and on other sites.

I can't be certain (could just be confirmation bias of some sort), but I
personally find that what Wolf said in that line is true. When I read and
write on paper, I feel like I have a deeper connection to what's there and am
more able to reason about it. Reading and writing on a computer feels more
detached, like I'm just consuming the content without understanding or just
dumping out ideas without thinking.

~~~
lenkite
I believe this is simple conditioning. There are many people like me who learn
_better_ from ebooks, online-papers and pdf's rather than dead-tree books. We
can annotate, attach notes, add/remove highlights and most importantly:
_search_ without needing a painful index and simultaneously study 2 or more
books on the same subject with little trouble in shifting context.

With paper books, all this is very painful - too much jugglery needed.

~~~
ntsplnkv2
I've found all of these things to be unhelpful compared to just having a
notebook next to my book, the added writing down of information helps me
retain information better.

I question the benefit of search beyond finding a sentence or two. Most large
ideas require more than a sentence or two to explain something, and ignoring
the context before and after could limit my understanding.

~~~
frosted-flakes
In any case, most substantial non-fiction books have both a table of contents
and an index.

------
romwell
Eh, cry me a river.

To put things in contrast: the Russian Empire, home of many great writers,
such as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Checkhov just to name a few, had a literacy
rate of about 24% overall; and at that, less than 13% of women were
literate[1].

The truth is, reading has never really been the pastime of the masses, save,
possibly, for a brief period in the 20th century.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likbez](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likbez)

~~~
andrepd
_> Eh, cry me a river._

Such substance.

 _> To put things in contrast: the Russian Empire, home of many great writers,
such as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Checkhov just to name a few, had a literacy
rate of about 24% overall_

Like another poster commented, Russia had serfdom until well into the 19th
century. Look at central and western Europe, if you want to see a literate
society in that time.

Also, what is your point with this? Poor societies had bad literacy levels?
Illiterate peasants don't care for books? I struggle to see the point with
that observation.

 _> The truth is, reading has never really been the pastime of the masses,
save, possibly, for a brief period in the 20th century._

Not dying of diharrea before the age of 5 has also never been the pasttime of
the masses until a hundred years ago. What the hell does that mean? If people
start dying of preventable diseases again that we should not worry?? If
indices of progress start stagnating, or in this case, _regressing_ , then we
must wonder how on earth we are doing so badly.

~~~
romwell
My point was that great literature doesn't need the involvement of 90% of the
population to exist.

If 90% of the people stop reading books "deeply" (and that's assuming they
ever did), we still get to have Tolstoys of our day for the people who want to
spend their time that way. This is no loss for humanity.

You picked "reading books" as your metric of progress, but that choice needs
to be justified. If, instead, you picked "watching programmed television", you
could be similarly concerned as more people are cutting cable, but fewer
people would take this argument seriously.

------
habosa
I strongly agree with this quote from the article: "What bibliophiles really
fear isn’t the disappearance of books but the elimination of the time and
space needed to enjoy them."

I absolutely love reading books but it takes a really conscious effort to
carve out time and space in the day to to it. I need quiet and I need my other
interruptions to pause.

I own a ton of paper books but I've recently switched to Kindle. I find that
having a small and self-illuminating reading device makes me way more able to
take advantage of reading time when I find it.

------
stevenkkim
The following assertion interests me greatly:

> She points out how the “physical and temporal thereness of books” provides a
> tactile support for the reading circuit’s development that e-books do not,
> while noting e-books nonetheless continue to spread to classrooms and
> children’s bedrooms.

Why would this be the case?

Is there a measurable difference between dedicated "paper-like" e-book readers
like the Kindle vs. e-books on multi-use digital devices like mobile phones,
tablets and computers?

~~~
mrr54
I imagine it could have something to do with the physical fixedness of a book.
I can remember the positions of the line breaks in some of my favourite books
as a child and it wouldn't surprise me if the physical layout of the words on
the page (and how far through the book you are) somehow factored into the way
the brain stores the memories of reading the book.

With an ebook you have the same little device with exactly the same dimensions
for every book (no memorable covers or different formats) and there's no
physical indication of how far through the book you are. And you can change
the font size.

~~~
stevenkkim
I think all these points are valid. As someone who spent the first 30 years of
my life reading physical books, the transition to e-books has been difficult
for a lot of the reasons you mention.

I wish the author was more specific on what "reading circuit development"
means.

The frustrating thing about e-book reading devices is how slow they are.
Flipping to the table of contents or flipping around the book just doesn't
work. Mobile devices, tablets and computers are faster, but the experience
still isn't as good a physical book. And then there are distractions.

------
throwanem
I miss my Palm TX. It managed to be so poor at almost everything it tried to
do that uninterrupted reading was the only thing it was really good for.

A pocket device without notifications. Can you even still imagine? I barely
can, and it's only been eight years.

~~~
moonka
I like my kindle for so many reasons, especially the screen which doesn't
strain my eyes. But this is by far the biggest benefit over reading on my
phone or a tablet.

~~~
ajmurmann
I'm in the same boat. I wonder how soon e-ink readers will get great response
times and then share the same problem as modern tablets compared to the old
palm.

------
juskrey
The author got pretty much everything in reverse. Books are Lindy.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect)

------
blueridge
Sunday morning follow-up reading:

Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

[https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/02/08/reading-in-
th...](https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/02/08/reading-in-the-age-of-
constant-distraction/)

Analog Anchors for the Online Adrift

[https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/analog-
anchors-f...](https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/analog-anchors-for-
the-online-adrift)

------
mrr54
>In these later letters, Wolf sounds like the kind of alarmist digital
enthusiasts often deride. After all, they say, reading is not dying; it’s
thriving. Wolf herself quotes a study from the University of California, San
Diego, showing that an average user consumes 34 gigabytes of data per day—the
equivalent of nearly 100,000 words.

How is that the equivalent of nearly 100,000 words? I appreciate people read a
lot of text messages, articles, posts, etc. But they don't read 100,000 words
worth of those things on average a day by any means. 34 gigabytes of data is
also definitely not 100,000 words, more like 5,100,000,000 words or 17,000,000
pages.

Is it based on some 'a picture is worth 1,000 words' argument?

Reading is not thriving. It's hard to find anyone that actually reads books,
even if you count reading on eReaders, even if you count listening to
audiobooks! People consume a lot of data because they're watching Netflix,
YouTube videos and Instagram (and downloading the same JavaScript over and
over again on every website).

The whole article is just bizarre. It conflates so many unrelated things and
doesn't seem to have any real thesis. People not reading books doesn't really
have anything to do with people using phones except for the indisputable fact
anyone here will attest to: going back to reading books after not doing so for
a long time is _really_ hard. You find your mind wandering, you find it hard
to read linearly one line at a time without skipping around, etc. The kind of
reading you do of a blog post is totally different from the kind of reading
you do of a novel. That people read pamphlets in the 18th century has _nothing
at all_ to do with the decline in people reading books today.

I literally have students coming into tutorials that _cannot write_. They
cannot write down answers on paper. They struggle to _write_ (to write!)
because they've been told they can just type and never have to write. It's
absolutely bizarre, but that's what they're told by their school teachers,
apparently. They also can't sit still and read something without getting out
their phones. Students complain that their lecture notes aren't put online and
they have to actually attend lectures and take notes themselves even though
it's been proven again and again that handwriting notes in lectures is much
better for information retention and synthesis of ideas than typing or god-
forbid not taking notes at all.

Personally, I'm really unsure whether I would even let kids have access to the
internet. I had a lot of great experiences online as a kid (I have very fond
memories of RuneScape from ages 9-12), and I learnt computer programming
online. At the same time, I think you have to be really careful to limit it.
It shouldn't be the primary means of entertainment. Mobile devices are
probably the main issue: avoid them and at least you can ration and supervise
their access to the internet. It can be a tool for research, homework and
learning (and fun and games) without the dangers. The mixed messages ("don't
share your personal info online" \+ "put all your personal info online on
Facebook and Instagram") are unhealthy and confusing to kids too, I think.

~~~
burlesona
I also “lol’d” at 34GB being equated to 100,000 words. A sibling poster
suggests it was supposed to be 100k books, but I’m skeptical, it sounds to me
like just a false correlation (the author saw somewhere that people read as
many as 100k words per day and elsewhere that they consume 34GB of data and
mistakenly connected those two dots).

------
chewz
> Just a few years ago, the Kindle was being blamed for the death of the
> traditional book. But the latest figures show a dramatic reversal of
> fortunes, with sales of ebooks plunging. So what’s behind this resurgence?

[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/27/how-ebooks-
los...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/27/how-ebooks-lost-their-
shine-kindles-look-clunky-unhip-)

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
There's a thriving independent self-published Kindle market which isn't
included in the sales of the mainstream publishers. So there is no "dramatic
reversal of fortunes."

~~~
ntsplnkv2
Also ebooks are so freaking expensive when I can get used copies for pennies
on the dollar.

------
estrela
Personally, I too find a future without books depressing. I do not have any
scientific data to back me up on "physical books being better than digital
ones", it's simply my personal preference. As someone that spends all day on
the computer, I cherish the moments I spend doing something like reading a
book, or running, or cooking. Something that feels a little more connected
with reality.

------
tasogare
The effect of a bookless society can already be seen for centuries: suffice to
compare development of societies that use them vs those that don’t. There is a
clear correlation between GDP and the number of centuries (millennia in
Chinese’s case) written medium has been in use.

------
commandlinefan
> his copy survives crisp and clean to this day, with only the first and last
> pages cut.

Like TAOCP, then, eh?

------
RickJWagner
Timely article for me. I'm getting ready to move, and have been giving books
to Goodwill and throwing some away. (I doubt even Goodwill have takers for
Access 2 or VB 3 books.)

I really treasure books, but I'm not finding not so much as I did in the past.

------
bryanrasmussen
>It won’t be long before all living memory of a time before the personal
computer is gone.

And there is some evidence that maybe 100 years after that time all living
memory of a time with the personal computer will be gone.

~~~
mirimir
Maybe we ought to be printing manuals, documentation, manufacturing methods,
etc on Tyvek.

------
LockAndLol
This article is the epitome of "back in the day, everything was better". There
are no links to back up claims or credentials, and lots of relative facts
without context.

Paraphrasing "rich kids are more literate than poor kids despite both having a
lot of screentime" doesn't prove anything about books and literacy.

This is a pure opinion piece with cherry picked facts.

~~~
dorchadas
This is really a book review; if you want all the figures and facts, read the
book it's reviewing and discussing. Heck, they even tell you they won't be
repeating it all there!

------
ggm
Yet for more time stories were essentially oral and the oral tradition of
being read to while working, and of reading aloud to one another kept
knowledge alive for many people. Oral story telling and reading aloud presumes
high literacy when a shared activity

------
msla
I wonder how books compare to scrolls, or clay tablets.

------
jvandonsel
tl;dr

