Twenty years ago, I thought that the Internet would dramatically change – even enhance – the way we humans communicate. After all, this is how Gutenberg’s printing press revolutionized civilizations in the sixteenth century. Ten years ago, when Kindles, tablets, and smart phones hit the market, I thought digitized word would replace the written word. These early predictions have proved true in one sense but untrue in another. They have indeed changed the way humans live, but those changes have not always seemed for the better. Much as in Gutenberg’s printing press, these changes have caused social upheaval. The printing press led to the Protestant Reformation, the construction of the German language and German nationalism, and the loss of many lives in the Peasants’ Rebellion. It’s no wonder that technology is changing the way contemporary life is conducted.
In 2020, we are surrounded with technology that provides access to a constant world of, well, additional superficial technology. Technology often works within its own silo and often doesn’t connect with human-centered elements with our culture. When talking about sophistication or connectedness, one often thinks of how many technological outfits are “talking to” each other instead of personal influences. The personal language of Artificial Intelligence is shaping the English language (e.g., how “smart” software is, how computers “know” things). In practices like counseling and customer service, AI often naively seeks to replace human intelligence instead of supplement it.
Depth in the form of relationships or intellectual content seems ever-further away. Our dialog – if that’s an accurate term – in social media does not seem to be of high quality. We fight with each other over things, like politics or religion, that divide us. The 2016 American election was the equivalent of World-War-I trench warfare verbally on Facebook instead of physically in France. Our social groups seem ill-positioned to combat this social dysfunction. As Pew Research studies testify, traditional avenues for social diversity such as religion are in an ineluctable, slow decline in America, and the percentage of people seeing themselves as non-affiliated is in the rise. White American Evangelicals are politically wedded to conservatism (with 70+% supporting Trump). Such a position seems less motivated by theology than by a desire for power to force their neighbors into religious compliance. Such social groups hardly seem to promote diversity and dialog but instead reinforce existing biases.
On the positive note, access to worthwhile content has increased dramatically. Even those in the poorest sectors of the world have access to some of the world’s best content through the World Wide Web. Previously impoverished nations like Rwanda have rebuilt their economy based on good Internet access, and they have been richly rewarded in the form of money and culture. We should welcome and encourage these happenings. They are what initially popularized the Net. The computer can be a leveling force. It allows anyone (with curiosity and a smart phone) relatively unfettered contact to materials and libraries that has the potential. The limit seems to be in sparking such a curiosity in the first place. The human component never escapes us.
Technology might not have brought a new utopian age, but it has helped humans do life just a little better. We are more efficient economically, and despite all the social malaise, crime continues to drop – a sign that people are putting themselves in beneficial situations. The humane part of life seems to lack, however, as “socializing” with each other electronically seems only to isolate us more and more. As explorations like Robert Putman’s Bowling Alone and Sherry Turkle’s research show, attendance of places in the public square (e.g., civic groups, churches) seem to diminish because our technology increasing keeps us at home. When is the last time you ordered a package from online instead of going shopping in your town?
So where do books fit into this narrative? For one, books are more easily distributed today than ever before through technology. Further, books take our minds off of the technology that surrounds us. They offer us an escape from an age dominated by electronics. They require longer investment of time and a bit of discipline, too. They demand focus amidst life’s ceaseless interruptions. To dive deep into a book’s content, we must first somehow disregard the alerts that our devices bombard us with.
Personally, I prefer paper books so that I don’t have to spend any more time staring at a screen, but I still dabble in Kindle books as well. These books stretch my mind in a way that online chatter simply doesn’t. Therefore, after reading good prose, we can re-approach technology with our own ideas. Books help me master technology as a human instead of being mastered by technology as a user. I prefer reading books from a variety of perspectives, not just from one perspective. Likewise, I choose articles from journalist outfits that challenge me instead of merely reinforce my preconceptions. Reading others’ written words allow me to escape the echo chamber of my own world and my own thoughts. They allow me to connect with other people and to grow in human connectedness. These elements of humanism need to be heard in America over the ubiquitous political discord and the incessant progress of technology. We need more hope, more humanity, and more love and devotion in the public square.
Books also teach us how to use language better. At first, this seems academic, but good language use keeps us from becoming mere pawns of technology in our lives. We can think. We can process. We can act humanely. Books teach us to become alive when things happen to us as we think instead of just reacting. Too much of our time is spent taking care of technology; too little of modern life is about expressing language of love, joy, and happiness. Books more effectively communicate ideas than almost any other media. Human brains are more active – some studies say over twice as much – than when watching television. Good writing takes us to other worlds as it engages our brains’ imaginations. Then we can take that inspiration and understanding back to our lives, to our friends, to our work, and to society as a whole.
Reading is personally vital to me. It’s more than a hobby. I find it hard to get through a day and be happy without spending at least thirty minutes with my nose in literature. (I try to spend longer than that, but thirty minutes is a minimum for survival.) It allows me to relax my entire body from the burdens of the day and to bring my mind to issues that are much bigger than me. Reading puts my life into perspective. I don’t have to worry about my petty problems as much. Instead, I am equipped to have greater compassion upon fellow traveling partners in life. Reading good writing also engages my mind in the events around me. I focus less on just making it through (that is, surviving) or even making it through well (that is, succeeding). Instead, I focus on creating my way and growing into something better. I think more as an editor and consistently wade through the minutiae of what’s transpiring around me. I grow to become more patient, more reflective, more contemplative. And again, this leads me to react less and act more deliberately and confidently. In these ways, reading helps me grow.
So to answer the question posed in the title, why books? More specifically, why books in an age when there are so many other (often worthwhile) distractions around us? Books magically rebuild us into people more equipped to withstand life’s rigors and inevitable losses. They teach us not only to live better but also to be better. They allow us to integrate ourselves with all the action that goes around us.
Why books and not education? Learning by sitting in a classroom provides accountability but is still a fairly inefficient means of communication. It takes less effort and provides more freedom to read. Careful reading – critical, insight-seeking, and question-filled reading – can better facilitate the learning process. Plus it’s cheaper to open a book for a few hours than to drool over a public speaker. Why books and not YouTube or Coursera? YouTube and Coursera are more reproducible than classrooms, but the underlying logic of an argument can be taken over by intangible human factors in the performance.
In short, listening to words tends to slow life down. The small stuff of life can often become overwhelming and distracting. Slowing life down means first counterintuitively quickening life to the pace of words and then summarizing those words into greater ideas and feelings. This process, repeated again and again as our brains engage different texts, teaches us to think as we go through life. We are less like wild animals who spend all their time worrying about the next source of food and are more like Homo sapiens – that is, wise beings.
People often say that books are great to help you with the SAT, that they can advance my career through good GRE scores. To these people, academic prowess and the resulting social ascent are books’ reasons for existence. These reasons have never inspired me, either as a youth or as an adult. Race, class, and gender make a lot of people speak, but such things are divisive. Social division is not the point of language. Instead, language is about connecting more with fellow humans by way of transparent and effective communication. As with other academic disciplines, the intrinsics of working with language drives the process, not just what it brought to my life extrinsically. Using fancy words for pretense is a losing game since it pushes people apart instead of bringing them together. Words should be weighty yet humble. They should inspire not by looking complicated but by their truth and accuracy. The large vocabulary that gained by reading widely and studying many languages provides verbal equipment to paint an accurate and interesting picture and to avoid boring the audience. Books transport such equipment in spades.
For me, reading is personal. It’s a part of my curiosity. As I grew, books became not mere objects for social climbing and for educational advancement. They were there for me, as a person. At first, I was especially curious about religion, and so I started reading about religion and philosophy. And I read. And I read. And I read. Then my curiosity broadened into other topics like narratives, poetry, work, technology, and politics. It continues to broaden into evermore intricate spaces. Curiosity about the world around continually extends my curiosity into some new matter or another. As Dorothy Parker once said, “The cure for boredom is curiosity; there is no cure for curiosity.” Now, I read about anything and everything in my life. I read about computer programming, career development, business and management, and yes, even reading and language.
As Parker intimates, curiosity drives itself, and with it comes some beneficial effects. For instance, curiosity can heal some of our great American social divides. We can learn to speak truth instead of to spin off hype-laden lies. We can learn to appreciate those with whom we disagree, and we can learn to disagree more courteously. Other people’s religions and politics can become a focus of our study while we deepen into our own views. Curiosity also brings us the capability of driving our world instead of the liability of letting technology drive us. With curiosity, we learn to manage our own mental health instead of stressing out when the world manage us. We can act instead of reacting. Reading about the surrounding world equips us for life.
That’s why I read books and advocate for reading.