A decade…ten years…if you have lived less than two decades, you may have little to add to this dialogue; nevertheless, I propose that even those remaining in their teens might offer some perspective on what changes they have observed over the last decade. For me, the differences between decades emerges from interactions with students, or a funny meme about a phrase like 10 years ago is truly meaning 2013 and not the 1990s, or in the awakening reality of a simple task like shredding old financial documents. During this annual process of replacing the outdated tax information with more recent, it dawned on me how many of the receipts were from retail places no longer in existence (or at least on life-support)—Gander Mountain, Hallmark, JC Penney, Sears, and Kmart.

This evidence of change in retail habits is just one of the numerous examples you could cite to support how life has evolved recently, but it’s doubtful that anyone would disagree with the transformation we have all witnessed to becoming a Screen Culture in nearly all aspects of daily living. With the introduction of the iPhone and Kindle in 2007, along with the cascade of all other digital devices that followed, life as we once knew it, no longer exists. And as an avid reader, an educator, and an innately curious person, I’m deeply interested in how this transition is impacting our “learning, knowing, and remembering,” especially as it relates to cultivating a flourishing life.

With encouragement from my colleague, Jeannette Russ, to read Non-Computable You for a discussion panel and picking up Words Onscreen from the “new books” section in the Union library, my Christmas reading led to pondering what transforming to a Screen Culture will mean for all of us in the days ahead. Specifically, I was curious to investigate what researchers have uncovered with regards to the options of reading onscreen versus print. What does this mean for the college students currently in my classes who demonstrate little interest in reading books? What impact will this have on participation in discussions and class assignments, especially in light of the high price of printed textbooks and students opting out of purchasing? And lastly, what effect, if any, is this digital media having on our ability to communicate?

Anyone who attempts a discussion on the preference over print to digital reading will usually find strong opinions on both sides, and as someone who actually enjoys both mediums because of the personal benefits, I am truly interested in the experiences of others. What is revealed in Baron’s work is consistent with my previous opinion that we all should develop a Digital Philosophy to protect ourselves from the harmful effects of a Screen Culture, especially in light of what is uncovered with regards to our shrinking attention spans. Baron shares, “A study commissioned by Time Inc., called ‘A Biometric Day in the Life,’ found that subjects in their twenties switched media sources 27 times an hour—barely two minutes per landing. While advertisers may take such data as a clarion call to ramp up the graphics if they want to hold eyeballs, those of us losing sleep over the diminishing attention spans of digital natives become increasingly uneasy… There’s a name for this type of mental flitting: hyper attention. And those who engage in hyper attention are primed and ready to be hyper readers.” Trust me, even if educators aren’t paying attention, your insurance companies certainly are with an uptick of overflowing bathtubs and stove fires!

My heightened concern with a Screen Culture goes beyond just reading for a class assignment or for leisure, “a generation characterized by hyper attention can be expected to carry over these habits of mind when it comes to reading. What happens to our minds if deep attention [a Habit of Deep Work] and deep reading become the preserve of only a handful of people?” Researchers continue to point out that Deep Work, including deep reading, cultivates essential skills such as “inferential and deductive reasoning, analogical skills, critical analysis, reflection and insight.” What happens when an entire Emerging Generation lacks these abilities?

Again, I am a fan of both print and digital methods of reading, however, there is an ongoing interest in how transforming from print to digital is impacting our world. Would you consider sharing a personal experience with our Screen Culture in the comments below? Perhaps we can all learn something new in how to navigate an unknown future.

References:

Baron, N. S. (2021). Know what? how digital technologies undermine learning and remembering. Journal of Pragmatics, 175, 27–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.01.011

Baron, N.S. (2015). Words onscreen: The fate of reading in a digital world. Oxford University Press.

Marks, R. (2022). Non-computable you: What you do that artificial intelligence never will. [Kindle version]. Discovery Institute.