Reading Response #3
In Sven Birkert’s article he reveals his opinion about literature today and the people who are reading it. In Birkert’s essay he relays that the world has picked up speed and people do not settle down and take the time to use their brains to their full potential. Society is getting sucked into mindless habits and no longer absorbs text like it should be. People are in such a rush, too eager to get on to the next task that they are missing everything there is to gain in a school essay or a good book. No one is connected to their literature anymore. The writing is no longer timeless. People care more about Facebook updates that won’t matter in a week over great literature that will remain significant for many years. I think the purpose of Birket’s article is to bring this awareness to society and encourage them to look deeper into their text and take the time to understand and enjoy instead of breezing through everything and move on. Sven is trying to re-teach the value of literature and show that you gain much more from taking the time to discover than put energy towards all the social networking and meaningless status updates.
“What is most conspicuous as we survey the general trajectory of reading across the centuries is what I think of as the gradual displacement of the vertical by the horizontal -- the sacrifice of depth to lateral range, or… a shift from intensive to extensive reading.” In other words quantity has replaced quality. For example if a man stood next to a stack high of book that he barely understood, he would seem more sophisticated that the man with a small stack of book that understood every word and could teach the subject. Reading has become more of a competition than a way of learning and gaining experience and knowledge. Knowing this you can relate to the ideas that Birkerts is trying to get across. Everyone gets something different out of what they read; and everyone can get something out of what they read. Literature is an important aspect of life and Sven Birkert’s text is showing us that we are slowly disregarding this aspect and it is hurting us. One word at a time.
Birket’s article and the “Social Media Revolution” video go hand in hand. The video shows hard numbers of the mass involvement society has with internet and the new social technology available. Out of all the many statistics that the video presented, not one of them included the status of book readers. New technology is the main culprit of Birket’s findings. Technology has made everything easier and more addicting to replace the process of having to think for yourself. Technology is even trying to replace our beloved paper and ink with the electronic Kindle that turns the pages for you. I agree with Birket’s ideas of text. It is precious and informative and something we have to fight from being overthrown by our advances in technology.