I have a new cell phone and checking out BooksinMyPhone I saw a diagram of my very phone. It is exciting to know that I could download a book to it and read from it when I need to amuse myself while waiting for an appointment. I could read Middlemarch and let George Eliot's elegant prose calm me down.But would I settle down at night with my phone, or a Kindle, if I even decided to buy one? Would I even borrow a Kindle? Not likely. But, maybe this is the attitude of an older, shall I say, a more mature person. Just as many library users really like audio books on the self contained Play-Away devices instead of going online and going through the hassle of downloading an audio book, technology is way ahead of most mature readers. As to the younger folk, I personally think it would be great if they were plugged into a great YA book instead of Eminem.This opinion is shared by the parent referred to in the New York Times article, who is just glad her daughter is reading at all and not too concerned that all of her reading is done on the Internet. I guess I am willing to settle for any reading rather than holding out for the ideal of just contemplative and detailed reading from a book, even though the the esperts are sure that reading alters the circuitry of the brain. The article is full of interesting contradictions. Low income students who are given Internet computers raise their reading scores. Yet, educators deplore the trend to bit-length information, and, in their opinion, the lack of cognitive and lengthy contemplation that book reading fosters. Then, they alude to the fact that a lot of jobs are going to be computer or Internet based. You can't have it all.
