This week, we were asked to respond to Motoko Rich's 2008 NY Times article "R U Reading".
As I must, I approached it as a scientist. That's my background and training and aspiration. From that angle, Ms. Rich's effort comes across as not fully thought out. She tries to evaluate the relative value of "old style" reading vs. newer styles, but fails to define either very well. New reading apparently is anything that isn't novels or long (New York Times-style?) articles. Examples given include fanfiction, text messaging, and social media. Given the rapidly-changing media landscape, it's not even clear that this selection is relevant. Younger people still text, but Rich didn't consider Twitter, much less Snapchat or Tumblr. She doesn't even mention blogs!
In addition to not defining the types of reading, she doesn't define the measure of "better." Does she mean school performance? Job performance? Personal satisfaction? Entertainment? Cultural continuity? She mentions or hints at them all without fixing on one or a set to guide her writing, making it oddly unfocused.
She also avoids citing any evidence. She mentions test scores twice, but no numbers are in the article, very odd to a science-trained person like me. She just quotes various academics and other authority figures giving their opinions.
In the end, the article is valuable for the questions it raises, but does its best never to answer any.
Carl, I tend to agree with you that Rich did not give as many paradigms of technology tools or blogs. It was inconclusive. Marilyn
ReplyDeleteAlthough many questions were raised and not answered, I believe that can be a good thing. Sometimes it is good for people to answer questions in their own way, and to interpret things differently than other people might answer them.
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