I vividly remember my childhood trips to the local library with my mom, and how I would leave the library with a large stack of books, which I would immerse myself in for the next few weeks.
Now, I sadly don’t even own a local library card. With emerging technologies such as e-books, and Google Book Search trips to the library are becoming less and less frequent.
Interestingly enough, we recently discussed an article in class that explains that people don’t wholly read content online, they merely scan it. It seems that something may be lost in translation.
The Web is taking away from the fine quality of information that we get from books. This commencement speech makes some of the most important points in regards to books. It states, “Underline, make notes in the margins, and after a few years, go back and read it again. Make use oft he public libraries. Start your own personal library and see it grow.”
Another article sadly addresses the point that because we are used to browsing over content on the Web it has caused us to lose the ability to focus and concentrate when actually reading long texts.
Maybe its just the changing time, or perhaps its part of me getting older, but the days of struggling to stay awake to finish a good book before bed time has been replaced with falling asleep with the glow of a computer screen in my face.
Pick up a book, read it, and let it light up your face in ways that a glow of a computer screen can’t.
The Web has caused the failure of a lot of things; don’t let books be the next thing on the list.
