Since the aging of computers humans have changed their definition of reading. Reading used to be getting out a book, sitting down, and reading the book from cover to cover. Now a day’s most people consider sitting in front of their computer as reading. Whether it be on social networking sites or EBooks. Susan Jacoby is one person who would argue that reading on the web is not really reading. She has written two different articles about this issue and expressed her feelings about the issue very openly in both articles. One of the articles is The dumbing of America written on February 17, 2008 and appeared in the Washington post. A few months later Susan Jacoby wrote Reading on the Web is not Really Reading written on August 27th, 2008 and appeared in The Spectator. In the article first article by Susan Jacoby (The dumbing of America) Susan talks about reading for pleasure and what people would consider that to be.
In this article she refers to a report in 2007 by the National Endowment for the Arts and states that “In 1982, 82 percent of college graduates read novels or poems for pleasure; two decades later, only 67 percent did. And more than 40 percent of Americans under 44 did not read a single book — fiction or nonfiction — over the course of a year. The proportion of 17-year-olds who read nothing (unless required to do so for school) more than doubled between 1984 and 2004”. Susan Jacoby, The Dumbing…) She believes all of these statistics have declined due high rise in computers and web surfing. She also compares reading a tree house and reading on the web and says that concentrating on and reading a book increases “the inability to concentrate for long periods of time — as distinct from brief reading hits for information on the Web — seems to me intimately related to the inability of the public to remember even recent news events”. Susan Jacoby, The Dumbing…) What Susan Jacoby was concluding in this article is that reading on the web and not an actual book is the cause of anti-intellectualism.
In the second article by Susan Jacoby (Reading on the Web is not Really Reading) she talks about Obama’s view on reading on the web and how she greatly agrees with his views. She states that one of Obama’s persistent theme’s for the election “has been the need for parents to turn off the television, put away video games, and spend more time reading to and talking with their children”. Susan Jacoby, Reading…) She also states that it is impossible to escape the fear that something has gone badly wrong with ‘diffusion of knowledge throughout the community’ — even though, ironically, the internet offers the most powerful tool ever invented for the spread of education. And everything that has gone wrong has gone particularly wrong among the young. ”. (Susan Jacoby, Reading…) She believes that he problem with the youth of these days is that they spend way to much time on the internet or playing video games and not enough time sitting down and reading a good book.
She also used staticis in this article and states “In 2006 the US and the United Kingdom vied for the mediocrity award in science in the most recent international assessment of 15-year-olds, conducted by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The US finished 17th out of 30 countries, while the UK finished 14th, but the UK acquired the dubious distinction of dropping from fourth to 14th place in just eight years. US students, by contrast, held their own — that is to say, they did just as poorly as they had on an OECD assessment in 2003. ” (Susan Jacoby, Reading…) She also states that “Among Americans aged 18 to 24, four out of ten never read any books — fiction or non-fiction — unless required for work or school. As for news, the majority of people under 30 are not paying attention at all”. (Susan Jacoby, Reading… ) She highly forces her opinion on reading on the internet and that it is corrupting the youth of today.
I believe that in both of these article Susan Jacoby didn’t really get to her point. She was more interested in talking about why she thought about these things but not why she thought that or where she got her information. She did however use many statistics and they supported her opinions but she then drifted away from them and just started stating her opinion’s all over again. She was very blunt and would tell the reader what the country is doing wrong but again would not support her opinions. I believe that these articles where not about reading on the web at all they were more political. She was trying to get people to side with the democrats without coming right out and telling them who to vote for.
Work Cited
- Jacoby, Susan. “Reading on the Web Is Not Really Reading A» The Spectator. ” The Spectator. World Press, 27 Aug. 2008. Web. 10 Oct. 2012. Jacoby, Susan.
- “The Dumbing of America. ” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 17 Feb. 2008. Web. 9 Feb. 2011.
