The famous journalist and writer Ernest Hemingway once said, ‘There is no friend as loyal as a book’. This is true as reading is a part of everyday life. It spreads ideas through many people and enables effective communication. Alternatively, it is also a pastime for people as they could read stories. Some key terms to take note of in the question are ‘reading’, ‘pastime’ and ‘new media’. ‘Reading’ in this essay is about sustained reading such as novels and literary works. ‘Pastime’ means that it is a hobby and that it is done for enjoyment. ‘New media’ refers to modern technology such as computers and the Internet. To say that reading is no longer prioritized as a hobby due to the rise of new media is wrong, as firstly, publishing firms …show more content…
If reading were no longer important, book publishers such as Pearson and Thomson Reuters would no longer exist. However, they still do. In fact in 2012, Scholastic Press made $2,148 million USD in revenue. Genres published range from fantasy to history. In fact, publishing firms have used new media as a platform to further gain revenue and presence in society. ‘One sector of the publishing industry that’s alive and well, it’s e-books’ (McKinney ‘Book revenues are up’). According to PEW Internet Research Centre, the percentage of 16-year-old Americans who have read an e-book rose from 16% in 2011 to 23%. Besides ownership, the sales of e-books have also shown tremendous proliferate. Kindle ‘may be earning between $265 million to $530 million a year’ (Trefis Team Estimating Kindle Book-Sales) This shows that reading is still relevant as companies such as Kindle and Scholastic make a huge profit from book sales. This shows the demand for books are still great with many people reading them. Therefore, reading as a pastime is still …show more content…
Today’s new media has overshadowed reading and making it unimportant for many as it provides a greater and faster stimulus than reading. Stimulus is a thing that evokes activity or energy in a person. By providing a greater stimulus, new media such as video games or movies could be seen as more entertaining as a person is left with more energy afterwards. In an article written by parenting coach, Gloria DeGaetano, she stated that ‘The more violent the images of the video game, the increased arousal levels of neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) that excite and entice kids to keep playing’ (Video Game Stimulation and the Growing Brain). This phenomenon is called ‘Stimulus addiction’. Children start out with video games with low-intensity. Once the child builds up tolerance for that level of violence, he begins to seek out more violent video games to keep him entertained. This addiction to viedo games could also be seen in adults. In a research done by Joe Hilgard, a psychology researcher in the University of Missouri says that video games could act as a form escapism for adults to turn to when their life gets stressful. Social interactions formed online and in game achievements are other factors, which makes adults addicted to video games. So how are books less stimulating than video games? One reason is
It is often believed that children are better off spending more time reading books and less time zoning out in front of their video games. People claim that video games sanction and promote aggression and violent responses to conflict; and that most games are an immense waste of time. Steven Johnson, the author of “Why Games Are Good for You,” appreciates the virtues of reading books, but argues that playing video games may not be a complete waste of time. His purpose for writing this essay is to explain the impact of cybertechnology on human perception and communication, in which he defends the value of computer games. In his essay, Johnson fluctuates between the pros and cons of reading versus gaming to appeal to skeptics who believe video
Video games do not make us more intelligent. They may however, make us more prone to violence and sex. Video games are preventing us from screening out distractions and making thinking deeply a difficult task. Our brains become overwhelmed when multitasking. Moreover, Johnson states “... a modern video game can take forty hours to complete”. Forty hours keep kids from homework and as Rachael Rettner states in livescience, “The results show that boys given a PlayStation II are slower to progress in their reading and writing skills and have more learning problems reported by their teachers than those not given a system”. The sole reason studies come back positive for video games being productive is due to the fact that they test a regular video gamer with a non-gamer. Regular video gamers will do better in the study because the more they play, the better they get. Not many realize the effect of these “fully realized imaginary worlds”, it is making it harder for people to differentiate their virtual life with their real
In a world dominated by technology, reading novels has become dull. Instead of immersing into books, we choose to listen to Justin Bieber’s new songs and to scroll through Instagram posts. We have come to completely neglect the simple pleasures of flipping through pages and getting to finally finish a story. Sherman Alexie and Stephan King’s essays attempt to revive this interest in books that has long been lost. They remind us of the important role that reading plays in our daily lives. “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” for instance, demonstrates how being literate saved the narrator from the oppressive nature of society. The author explains that even though he was capable of reading complex books at an astonishingly young
Reading has been going through a steady according to the article “Why Literature Matters”. Dana Gioia believes that the decline of reading in America will have a negative effect on society. He believes that there are many people that contributes to the decline of reading but mainly in the young adults ages 18-24. Dana also believes that with the steady decline of reading we can see a major change in our nation including, being less informed,active, and having the ability to have an independent mind. Dana Gioia states that “The most worrisome finding in the 2002 study [Survey of Public Participation in the Arts],however, is the declining percentage of Americans, especially young adults, reading literature.”
There is no doubt, that literature has taken a back seat in the digital age. In a 2013 article for the Wall Street Journal, a top store executive for Barnes and Nobles revealed that the company expects to close twenty stores a year over the next decade. But Barnes and Nobles isn’t alone. Bookstore chains across the country are suffering the same losses. Consumers are choosing online book retailers like Amazon or opting out of reading altogether. These recent [trends?] are evident of a startling reality: people don’t read anymore.
Then, he gives examples of how literary readers are more social than non readers. However, this is the first time in the article that Gioia ties the decline in reading with social life, and he still fails to provide evidence that the higher social activity is the result from the historical knowledge people gain from literary
Ever since I was a child, I've never liked reading. Every time I was told to read, I would just sleep or do something else instead. In "A Love Affair with Books" by Bernadete Piassa tells a story about her passion for reading books. Piassa demonstrates how reading books has influenced her life. Reading her story has given me a different perspective on books. It has showed me that not only are they words written on paper, they are also feelings and expressions.
If you had the choice between your phone and a book,you would probably without thinking grab your phone. But what if you knew that reading is crucial to a future. In “Reading for pleasure Is in Painful Decline” by Stephen L. Carter and “Twilight of the books” by Caleb Crain, both authors argue about the state of reading in The United States. Within both passages they give valid points as to why and how the state of reading are negatively affecting the country. Stephen L. Carter represents how the decline in reading for fun is the main concern, while on the other hand, Caleb Crain shows it’s technology and social media that actually are the main contributors.
Bradbury attacks loss of literature in the society of Fahrenheit 451 to warn our current society about how literature is disappearing and the effects on the people are negative. While Montag is at Faber’s house, Faber explains why books are so important by saying, “Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores” (79). Faber is trying to display the importance of books and how without them people lack quality information. In Electronics and the Decline of Books by Eli Noam it is predicted that “books will become secondary tools in academia, usurped by electronic media” and the only reason books will be purchased will be for leisure, but even that will diminish due to electronic readers. Books are significant because they are able to be passed down through generation. While online things are not concrete, you can not physically hold the words. Reading boost creativity and imagination and that could be lost by shifting to qui...
"You can't get much more conventional than the conventional wisdom that kids today would be better off spending more time reading books, and less time zoning out in front of their video games." (Johnson, 27) But Johnson argues that people shouldn't try to determine the value and potential benefits of playing video games by comparing them to reading books, or by using the same criteria they would use to evaluate books, because the two are different mediums, and have their own advantages and limitations. Reading has enormous benefits and should be encouraged more, especially in children, but most people will also engage in other forms of media, which have their own rewards, even if those benefits don't surpass the advantages of reading. "Novels may activate our imagination, and music may conjure up powerful emotions, but games force you to decide, to choose, to prioritize.
“While it is true that more books are sold today than ever, recent statistics show that only about 15% of books bought today are read. Evidently, they are of more use as furniture—coffee-table books—than as a source of information or aesthetic buzz. The statistics continue; of those that are read, less than 20% are read all the way through. The unfinished book symbolizes the state of attention spans today”. Eric McLuhan opens up his 2010 argument against technology with this quote. He seems to believe that literacy is only fully achieved through limited technology and hard copies of books. He fails to realize there is more to literacy that picking up a book defined as a ‘classic’ and reading it cover to cover. Literacy covers all spans of artistic
During the past few years, the publishing and reading world has been facing a veritable digital book onslaught. E-books have been outselling print books on Amazon since 2011 (Polanka, 7). While digital book sales skyrocketed, print book sales, especially those of mass marked paperbacks, diminished. Even the fact that e-books are not much cheaper than print books does not seem to interfere with the former’s popularity. It would seem that the age of print books is about to end, and quite soon.
Video games are no longer the uprising form of media that ill informed parents and scientists used to fear; video games are now an established form of entertainment that is just as universally accepted as film or literature. The difference between videogames and mediums like film and literature is that they do not have the higher value that books have in exercising the mind and communicating information, nor do they have the value that films have to intellectually challenge an audience and to make people think. This is the general argument that can be heard voiced by leading intellectuals in various field as well as parents who are rising young children; both claim that videogames
Several years ago, technology and child’s play were not such as extremely developed as today. Thousands of teenagers have video game as their primary form of entertainment at home. The disagreement about violent video games is because they focus on several subjects such as violence scenes, pornographic content, racism and other resources. For many years, researchers have been debating if video games can cause dependence or not. However, an expert, Jack Flanagan believes video games have a really negative effect on a person’s life and even for children. Jack states that video game addiction exists, and can have the same effects as drugs and alcohol (Netzley 36-37). This shows that video game addiction can be like other addictions
...wan believes, one of the best things about our digital lives is the ease with which we can share ideas with others. It is now possible for readers to connect with each other worldwide, as well as recommend and share their opinions about a particular piece of literature. Our need to engage in “deep reading” will not go away, as Rosen believes. The act of how we read may evolve as it has been evolving since beginning of mankind. How we read and write has evolved from cave walls to stone tablets to paper to keyboards. The digital world will not change what we read, but how we read. Because the experience of reading, the love of narrative, and cravings for story-telling is instilled into our DNA. Reading is a basic human need, it is evolutionary. Even though our means of attaining information or story telling may change, the act of reading is literally forever-lasting.