The never ending reading revolution

Thursday, August 26, 2010

I suppose it's more fun (and better for page views) to pretend that the internet/e-book revolution marks an unprecedented change in the way we read, but reading has always been subject to technological change. At the Atlantic, Tim Carmody lists 10 revolutions that had just as much, if not more, impact on reading than your next Jeff Bezos or Steve Jobs Wonder Gadget.

The revolution is never as neat and tidy as it sounds, nor are our current problems related to media consumption unique to our digitized, wireless world. When the printing press was invented, scholars worried that the widespread availability of print would degrade civilizaton, and 17th century thinkers actually whined about having too many books to read.

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