Writing and Reading

Writing and Reading
Patrick Ryall​ on thought continuum.

Originally shared by Pádraig Ó Raghaill

lectionem , perdidit patientiam

A monk sat quietly in Ireland, revolutionising the understanding of the world. It is the 7th century and a new dawn of human development is taking place. Scriptura continua is coming to an end, the method of writing with no spaces between words is being slowly relinquished, to the history books.

What would proceed, fundamentally changed the development of mankind.

It might have taken the Gutenberg press to really provide the means for the written word to reach the masses, but it was the ending of scriptura continua that took the laboriousness out of reading. Intellectual technologies have the greatest impact on human development. Although is it possible that one of the greatest inventions of all could be having a detrimental effect on our development?

Technological Instrumentalism & technological determinism are the two fundamental threads of thought governing our belief constructs of technology.

Technological instrumentalist states that technology has no ends of its own and exists only to accomplish human ends. Technology in completely under the control of humanity and human history is shaped by humans, not technology.

Technological determinism is a reductionist theory that presumes that a society's technology drives the development of its social constructs and cultural values.

To put it simply, we define technology advancement or technology advancement defines us.

Professors are finding it difficult for students to complete the required reading of academic disciplines. It would seem no sector of academia is exempt from this, philosophy students, English literature and psychology professors are all citing the issue.

Authors that write for a living are saying they are finding it difficult to finish books. People that were avid readers also commenting on getting lost in a book seems much more difficult than it once did.

People, in general, might be sourcing knowledge to feed the moment although, deep learning, has become even more niche than it once was.

Researchers instead of reading whole texts are using our technology tools to answer the questions they have and find passages of quotable reference.

When we learn a new language it influences or brain development, new pathways establish and we construct our view of the world slightly differently than mono language speakers. The placidity of our brain is fundamentally influenced when learning new tasks, and if we fail to use the tasks we learn the connects that governed that learning is overwritten as it were.

Where we used to think that once the brain has developed, into the adult brain and pathways established, it was not possible to form new pathways; we have in fact, discovered our brains are far more fluid in the construction of new pathways.

In essence, we can and do rewrite our brain programming on a continuing basis. The effects of the always on, always connected, instant need for the gratification now syndrome is rewriting our brains.

Recent studies showed that whereby many think TV time has dropped away, the reality is we are watching more TV than we did in 2004. Compounding this screen time is we now add the Internet 'screens' to that scenario.

What has decreased is our absorption of the written word. We read fewer books, fewer magazines, less industry related texts. While we think we read more online, in reality, our consumption, in general, is less.

I read more books than ever before online, says the reader. Do you? Or do you scan, virtually flip pages and in general read 30% of the book?

When we sit down with an actual printed tactile book our brain responds differently than reading online. Even the tactile holding of the book, turning the page has an effect on increasing comprehension and retention of the information.

For writers, our thought processes are different with pen and paper than with a word processor. Ask your child to write in cursive and you may get one of a few replies. What is that being one of them, we don't do that at school being another and why would I do that. If they can write in cursive it is often resembling a doctor's handwriting to use an old stereotype.

Although I do read a book in entirety, I am finding my single reading time has lessened. I have also noticed it takes me longer to pull the book back out of the coffee table draw than it used to. Even now, I was reading a book and thought I would like to post today as so far I have not. To me, that is worrying in multiple levels.

For one, who gives a crap if you have posted today or not. Why would I interrupt a book I was finding interesting, to post to a socialised fishbowl. Why is it taking me longer to pull out a book I have not yet finished, when I was enjoying the darn thing.

I grew up reading books, grew up surrounded by a tactile library of knowledge. I was read to as a child and in general, a love of books and learning was installed. I also grew up in a time of summer camps, riding a bike to a friends house and trips camping & fishing with friends at every given opportunity.

Despite this all still exists, it has become a rarity in modern parenting.

I am trying to keep my social media posts shorter than the war and peace length prose I so often do write, So I am cutting this off here and leave you with your thoughts.

#TheDeathofReading #EarlyLearning #ADHD #Sociology