We all read, damn it

I’m a supremely chill individual, but I do tend to snap at ignorance beyond a certain threshold. I like to think it’s a rather generous threshold. This post really irritated me.

But what I didn’t know is that books are already toast. Steve Jobs recently told the New York Times his opinion on Amazon’s Kindle electronic book reader.

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

Ouch.

Truth is, I’ve been thinking about writing a book this year. I was approached by a publisher last year, did the prep work, and they pulled out after they found another author that had already written a book on a similar subject. After that experience I was thinking of self publishing in print or an ebook. Now I’m wondering if I shouldn’t record video and sell DVDs instead.

Yeah, because people still buy DVDs, you idiot. Somehow in the midst of perpetuating this whole “the internet is destroying traditional media” bromide the poster managed to miss the fact that distributing video via DVD falls under the same category taking out a contract with a publisher to place dead trees on store shelves. And that’s saying nothing of the dated economic model both industries rely upon.

First, to quote Jobs on the matter is absurd, as he’s obviously going to bash any consumer device that isn’t made by Apple. To suppose that the future of experiencing text isn’t portable digital devices is madness, and the extremely web-capable iPhone is only a testament to that. Apple will introduce an e-reader of their own, or at least greatly expand the reading capabilities of devices like the iPhone and iPod Touch–although I genuinely believe we’ll see a new device in the next year or two, sized between the iPhone and smallest MacBooks.

I don’t think there’s ever been a time when people haven’t been complaining about the younger generation’s lack of education, though the particular gripe about not reading is obviously only as old as writing has been standard practice for communicating knowledge. People will always ingest knowledge. I even believe that they will always read, too, just as humans still use speech and body language to communicate. We are diversifying our modes of input, not replacing them. We are at nature multi-taskers, as the very act of speech would seem to confirm.

Recently there was a new video posted by e-anthropologist extraordinaire Michael Wesch, trying to develop a dialogue on how to adjust education practices to harness new technologies. It’s not as good as his first, which has over 4 million views on YouTube, but it’s in the same line.

The video doesn’t give answers, of course, but it’s part of a series. And the guy has to ensure future viewers, doesn’t he? All without selling DVDs, imagine that. I’m off to read my feeds for a bit.

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