Week 16 Prompt

Both of our readings this week talk about the culture of reading and the future of the book. So I have two questions for you as readers, pulling on your own experiences and all of the readings we have done over the semester: First, how have reading and books changed since you were a child, for you specifically? Second, talk a little about what you see in the future for reading, books, or publishing - say 20 years from now. Will we read more or less, will our reading become more interactive? What will happen to traditional publishing? This is a very free-form question, feel free to wildly extrapolate or calmly state facts, as suits your mood!

I have no memory of a time when I wasn’t a reader; I learned to read by accident when I was four.  My mom sat me at the kitchen table with coloring pages while she helped my sister with her phonics homework, and I learned by simply listening.  It wasn’t until I started reading a chapter book aloud later that year that my mom even realized I’d learned!  Then, when we were all in grade school, she started paying each of us $1.00 for each book we read (no repeats) in lieu of an allowance.  She was a great literacy advocate for my siblings and me and turned us all into lifelong readers. 

I went through waves in my appetite for reading, usually proportionate to the amount of academic reading I had to complete.  Once I completed my undergraduate degree, I started working as a nanny and ended up having quite a bit more free time to read.  Then, as a Christmas gift, the family that I worked for gave me a Kindle.  Before I knew it, I had thousands of free books on my Kindle, and I was reading wherever I went.  Now I use the Kindle application on my phone along with my Kindle device, as well as a whole selection of printed books.  Anymore, I read on both mediums, print and digital, and reading for enjoyment is an important part of each day. 

Given the way that reading habits have evolved over the past twenty years, it’s hard to imagine how they will change in the next twenty.  I can only assume that technology will continue to change the way that reading is experienced.  It’s easy to imagine that in the next several years that ebooks will have more integrated experiences.  Graphics, animation, sound, and other methods could easily be used to make reading a multi-sensory experience and can incorporate more than just the printed word.  I don’t think that printed books will every truly disappear, but it is likely that a higher proportion of people will begin to do some of their reading digitally, given the trends over the last several years. 

I do think that the publishing industry is likely to change significantly over then next couple decades.  I think the polarization between the big publishers and self-publishing will become greater; the big publishers will consolidate further and be able to exert greater control over the industry while smaller publishers will have to resort to more creative methods to market their products. 

I believe that reading in general will continue to remain important to daily life.  There is no replacement for literacy in daily life, and I think that a culture of reading will be maintained, even with the changes in reading habits that might occur over the next twenty years.  It will certainly be an exciting adventure, no matter what the future holds!