With great aplomb and with references to Gutenberg, Sebastian Brandt and The First Law of Technology, John Naughton’s Observer column today concludes that the web is changing the way young people read.

He quotes an exciting report from the University of London that says our young are becoming:

‘promiscuous, diverse and volatile.’ ‘Horizontal’ information-seeking means ‘a form of skimming activity, where people view just one or two pages from an academic site then “bounce” out, perhaps never to return.

Sagely, he continues with a prediction:

the universe of linear exposition, quiet contemplation, disciplined reading and study - is imploding, and we don’t know if what will replace it will be better or worse.

Okay, so I am teasing. Not John Naughton personally, whose column I like and who sounds like a fascinating, clever and attractive person if you go to his website, but the donnish caste of mind that occasionally leads to saying some very obvious things … well, a little portentously.

Of course people (not just young people) don’t read on the web like they do in print. Having an academic report that says web reading is superficial sounds every bit as startling as a report that says sleeping is horizontal.

People have always skimmed some things and carefully read others. We used to riffle through reference books, press clippings, cookery books or cupboards full of old maps. Now we just go to Google. But for Ulysses (John’s favourite novel) we need a book.

Nor do I see the implosion of reading and quiet contemplation among the young. The young that I know read voraciously. Fiction sales are up and up. More papers and magazines are printed every week than ever before in the history of the universe. Somebody must be reading all this dead wood.

I think, down here in the real world, the age of Gutenberg is alive and very well.

Entry Filed under: Newspapers