Is the internet damaging our abilities to focus and read books?

[bigbrowndog]

You have to commit to reading; I am starting to read books online now.

I never thought I'd prefer the screen, but the print size is great,
my laptop on a tilted stand is easier than trying to hold up a book, and
the online book doesn't expire and cost a fee.

Sometimes I have to read a page three times before my mind can settle down.

If you really want to read books, you'll do it if you make it a priority.

You have to find to best time for you; mine is about an hour before sleep.
Turn the TV off, no music, let everything settle down and shut everything out.

Then settle into the book. When you get sleepy, got to sleep.
Don't force yourself to finish too much. 5-6 pages a night is OK, more is OK too.

Before you know it, you'll be finishing books.

[bluzman]

if i like the book --last week i read --a naturalist in Florida by archie carr.....

few weeks ago read a book about outlaw bikers in 3 days....
but i always have the tv on or music playing...
i'm a regular at the library ---getting books on natural history,true crime,mafia,occult-
philosophy---native american history/culture---
and lotsa good dvds....

[Chrisbb]

Slow readers of the world, uuuuuuuu...niiiiite!

At a time when people spend much of their time skimming websites, text messages and e-mails, an English professor at the University of New Hampshire is making the case for slowing down as a way to gain more meaning and pleasure out of the written word.

Thomas Newkirk isn't the first or most prominent proponent of the so-called "slow reading" movement, but he argues it's becoming all the more important in a culture and educational system that often treats reading as fast food to be gobbled up as quickly as possible.

"You see schools where reading is turned into a race, you see kids on the stopwatch to see how many words they can read in a minute," he said. "That tells students a story about what reading is. It tells students to be fast is to be good."

Newkirk is encouraging schools from elementary through college to return to old strategies such as reading aloud and memorization as a way to help students truly "taste" the words. He uses those techniques in his own classroom, where students have told him that they've become so accustomed from flitting from page to page online that they have trouble concentrating while reading printed books.

"One student told me even when he was reading a regular book, he'd come to a word and it would almost act like a hyper link. It would just send his mind off to some other thing," Newkirk said. "I think they recognize they're missing out on something."

The idea is not to read everything as slowly as possible, however. As with the slow food movement, the goal is a closer connection between readers and their information, said John Miedema, whose 2009 book "Slow Reading" explores the movement.

"It's not just about students reading as slowly as possible," he said. "To me, slow reading is about bringing more of the person to bear on the book."

Miedema, a technology specialist at IBM in Ottawa, Ontario, said little formal research has been done on slow reading, other than studies on physical conditions such as dyslexia. But he said the movement is gaining ground: the 2004 book "In Praise of Slow: How a Worldwide Movement is Changing the Cult of Speed" sprang from author Carl Honore's realization that his "rushaholism" had gotten out of hand when he considered buying a collection of "one-minute bedtime stories" for his children.

In a 2007 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the executive humanities editor at Harvard University Press describes a worldwide reading crisis and calls for a "revolution in reading."

"Instead of rushing by works so fast that we don't even muss up our hair, we should tarry, attend to the sensuousness of reading, allow ourselves to enter the experience of words," Lindsay Waters wrote.

Though slow, or close reading, always has been emphasized at the college-level in literary criticism and other areas, it's also popping up in elementary schools, Miedema said.

Mary Ellen Webb, a third-grade teacher at Mast Way Elementary School in Durham, N.H., has her students memorize poems upward of 40 lines long and then perform them for their peers and parents. She does it more for the sense of pride her students feel but said the technique does transfer to other kinds of reading _ the children remember how re-reading and memorizing their poems helped them understand tricky text.

"Memorization is one of those lost things, it hasn't been the 'in' thing for a while," she said. "There's a big focus on fluency. Some people think because you can read quickly ... that's a judge of what a great reader they are. I think fluency is important, but I think we can err too much on that side."

It's all about balance, said Patti Flynn, an assistant principal in Nashua, N.H., and mother of a 10-year-old girl.

Her school has offered, and her daughter has participated in, numerous reading challenges that reward students for reaching certain milestones _ a pizza party for a class that reads 100 books, for example. Though such contests may appear to emphasize speed rather than reading for pleasure or comprehension, they also are good incentives for children who weren't motivated to read, she said. The challenges have encouraged parents to make reading a priority at home, Flynn said.

"The goal shouldn't be to be whipping through a certain number of pages, the goal should be to make sure kids are gaining some conceptual understanding," she said.

Her daughter, Lily, said she considers herself a "medium-speed" reader and had to increase her speed to finish about 10 books for her classroom's 100-book challenge. But she said she enjoyed the process and feels like she understood and remembers what she read.

"It was fun," she said.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/17-3

[CosmicRocker]

It's all about balance, said Patti Flynn, an assistant principal in Nashua, N.H., and mother of a 10-year-old girl.

exactly.
I took Evelyn Woods speed reading way back in high school.
I could read close to 4000 words per minute.
You don't pronounce the words you read, you skim the text. line by line
( when you first start use a ruler to block the next line)

afterawhile your brain simply "reads" the text without focusing on each word.

I still can read about 2000 words per minute, I don't practice it anymore, the skill is part of me.

But if i'm reading a novel for pleasure, I slow it way down , and read and pronounce each word.
Here reading is for pleasure -not knowledge.

Being able to read ( and it's not skimming text - the brain can recognize the text, even if you are not saying the words to yourself)
at a face rate has helped me enourmously.

If you have kids, teaching them speed reading is a skill that will help them in school and throughout life.

One of the best things I ever did.

[POHP]

I disagree, in fact I think......Ooooh, something shiney!

[Duvi]

I'm reading books more than ever lately ... perhaps weaning myself off the computer like I weaned myself off television ... coming to the conclusion I had it right before and could have saved myself a bundle ... I guess only a fool buys into all this and thinks it might help them extend their career. I was much happier as a Luddite and it would be easy getting back to that ... it's called pulling the plug....

[Kanadesaga]

Prince says the internet is dead, it's old news, like MTV.














because iTunes and Rhapsody won't pay him up front, like record companies used to.

[bigbrowndog]

...who?

[bluzman]

Originally Posted by bigbrowndog

...who?

is that the dude that used to be called prince ..who.is called PRINCE again----

musicians ???????????

[jdanton]

Originally Posted by chambers92

I try to read but I find my concentration isn't as good as it used to be. It can take me forever to get through a book.

I think that's just a sign of aging.

I also think concerns of this thread are silly. We've got tv; had it for quite some time. Some people watch news, some watch Jerry Springer, and some watch the home shopping network.

I don't read as much as I used to, as my eyes don't cooperate so much anymore. I also spend time here and watching tv; I like NCIS, Leverag, In PLain Sight, and a few others that I record and watch the following day, so I can watch Countdown and Maddow live.

I bring with me puzzle books when I pick up my granddaughter and work at solving the puzzles; keeps my mind working I think (hope).