A new book says the problem of reading in the 21st century is not technology but rather the difficulty society has in giving meaning to the ‘love of reading’.
When the word ‘literacy’ appears in the news, it tends to be followed by some alarming account of its precarious standing. It is often claimed that the arrival of digital media has reduced attention spans, leading to gloomy predictions of the ‘end of the book’ and the ‘death of the reader’.
Professor Frank Furedi, Emeritus Professor of Social Science, suggests in his new book – entitled Power of Reading: Socrates to Twitter – that what he describes as ‘the narrative of gloom’ that characterises the cultural obituary of ‘the reader’ stands in contrast to the way in which the practice of reading was once regarded in literate societies.
Great thinkers once celebrated reading as a solution to the predicaments they faced. From the Renaissance onwards, self-discovery was guided by reading. The Enlightenment embraced the reader as the arbiter of rationality and progress. Democrats and revolutionaries looked upon reading as a moral and intellectual resource for the conduct of a vibrant public life and as a tool of social transformation.
Professor Furedi questions the current tendency to devalue the reader, arguing that despite technological innovation and the influence of new media, the humanist ideal of the ‘discriminating reader’ capable of autonomous judgment can serve as the cultural ideal of the present day. He concludes by arguing that current concerns about the damaging influence of digital technology and the internet on literacy and the reader are misplaced.
Professor Furedi is Emeritus Professor of Social Science within the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research. His most celebrated books include Paranoid Parenting, The Culture of Fear and Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone.