In 1994, Sven Birkerts published an essay titled "Into the Electronic Millennium." Here, he lamented the replacement of print media-- books, especially-- with electronic forms of communication like television and computers. In an essay with this title, one might expect that lamenting would be all he does, but Birkerts draws some interesting conclusions from the rapid development of what we now call the digital age, and makes some accurate predictions.
Comparing first this advance of new technology with the replacement in ancient Greece of the oral tradition of Homer-- which involved the embedding of culture into poetry that bards would recite out loud-- with the written word, Birkerts goes on to argue that the use of visual forms of communication through electronic media changes the way we learn and think. Instead of discovering information through the logical and linear process of reading print, we learn through associated images that give us a general impression of the subject. The result, he says, is a loss of detail and a change in the way we anticipate how information should be organized.
Birkerts goes on to suggest that this movement away from linear thought may have led to postmodernism, generally the idea that there is no universal reality true for everyone and whose proponents reject the notion of a linear progression in history. In the same way, the culture's reduced focus on the printed word may have led traditionalist historians, who hold to "entrenched ideologies of white male elites," to battle revisionist historians, who believe history should be interpreted in more multicultural terms, over just what students should be reading. If students are not reading the printed word outside of school, then professors have a monopoly on what students are learning, and if this is true, it becomes extremely important to choose carefully what they read. Thus, academics battle over whether students will learn the traditional or the multicultural perspective.
Perhaps most interesting, however, are what Birkerts sees as the consequences of this movement toward electronic media. He claims there are three: oversimplified language, oversimplified history, and a reduction in privacy and individuality. In an apparent reference to 1984, he believes that with a reduced emphasis on the complex and specific nature of printed reading and writing, there will be a consequent simplifying of language into "plainspeak." Similarly, individuals who depend less on the written word will receive a shallower perception of history, a history that lacks sufficient context and chronology. Finally, as electronic media increasingly pervade our private spaces, we adopt a uniform mode of living in which each person uses the same technology in the same way, a trend that strips away each person's individuality.
It is reasonable to think that historians agree with Birkerts in his belief that we are reading less the printed word, and to believe that they therefore argue heatedly over what to assign their students. At first glance, events like the Civil Rights Movement and the sexual revolution would seem to be more responsible than the electronic media for the increased emphasis on a multicultural perspective of history. It is plausible, however, that the mass media made it possible for events like these to grow into mass movements. Still, the more direct cause of the multicultural perspective would be the events themselves, which would have made historians increasingly aware of the "entrenched ideologies of white males" and increasingly focused on the contributions of women and other races.
As far as the oversimplification of our language, Birkerts appears to have been partially right. He claimed the decreased emphasis on the printed word would lead to an oversimplification of language and history. Out of convenience, we use simplified language in abbreviated texts and e-mails. We hear sound bytes of information on the radio and on television, and read generalized narratives of world events through Internet news articles that can be read in one short sitting. We sit for mere moments to read excerpts about a concept, person, or event.
Still, the availability of convenient sources of quick-read information can easily overshadow the existence of deeper, more thoughtful reading on the same subject. There are huge repositories now of primary-source documents-- look up the "Gutenberg Project," for example-- that give the reader instant access to information that many historians in the recent past lacked, and there has been no other time when there has been greater access to published academic material. True, the existence of such information does not mean people are reading it, but at the same time, it seems reasonable to think it would not exist at all without adequate demand for it.
It could be, of course, that the deeper reading may be taken in by academics themselves and largely ignored by the rest of our culture. This would explain the existence of such reading. We are, however, seeing more people attend universities now than in the past, and though many students may be taking only cursory notice of the required reading, at least they are reading at all, something they may not have done had they moved directly into the workforce. We are focusing less on the printed word, but that has not necessarily led to a lack of deep, more complex reading.
Finally, Birkerts seems to have predicted correctly that the increased use of electronic media would further encourage the loss of privacy that he saw present in the middle of the 1990s. Facebook and Twitter allow others greater access to our personal lives than at any previous time. Whether this is a choice or a cultural expectation is another matter, but it has led to less privacy. Still, our use of electronic media seems to have led to more, not less, individualism. While our parents and family may have had a monopoly on our future and identity in the past, this is no longer true. Media outlets give children and adults alike a prevalence of ideas on what exactly is the best way to perceive life, and what exactly does represent the best profession and future. It is crucial to state, however, that parents and peers still have dominant influence over the beliefs of a child and adolescent, and therefore the simple presence of these varied perspectives does not mean children are adopting them. It only means they are present if a child wants to adopt them.
In the end, we are all oversimplistic and confused dolts, and we can place the blame squarely on the Internet. No, but Birkerts does encourage you to think about just how much the digital age has influenced us, an influence that in his view has been mostly negative. For my part, I appreciated the article, less because I necessarily agreed with it than because it encouraged me to think about the digital age in a new way. In the past, I had thought of our increase in electronic media as the source of our hastened lifestyle and, ironically, as the main reason we have become increasingly isolated. I had never thought it could be responsible for the way we think about information and for how we perceive history and even reality. Thanks for reading.
Comparing first this advance of new technology with the replacement in ancient Greece of the oral tradition of Homer-- which involved the embedding of culture into poetry that bards would recite out loud-- with the written word, Birkerts goes on to argue that the use of visual forms of communication through electronic media changes the way we learn and think. Instead of discovering information through the logical and linear process of reading print, we learn through associated images that give us a general impression of the subject. The result, he says, is a loss of detail and a change in the way we anticipate how information should be organized.
Birkerts goes on to suggest that this movement away from linear thought may have led to postmodernism, generally the idea that there is no universal reality true for everyone and whose proponents reject the notion of a linear progression in history. In the same way, the culture's reduced focus on the printed word may have led traditionalist historians, who hold to "entrenched ideologies of white male elites," to battle revisionist historians, who believe history should be interpreted in more multicultural terms, over just what students should be reading. If students are not reading the printed word outside of school, then professors have a monopoly on what students are learning, and if this is true, it becomes extremely important to choose carefully what they read. Thus, academics battle over whether students will learn the traditional or the multicultural perspective.
Perhaps most interesting, however, are what Birkerts sees as the consequences of this movement toward electronic media. He claims there are three: oversimplified language, oversimplified history, and a reduction in privacy and individuality. In an apparent reference to 1984, he believes that with a reduced emphasis on the complex and specific nature of printed reading and writing, there will be a consequent simplifying of language into "plainspeak." Similarly, individuals who depend less on the written word will receive a shallower perception of history, a history that lacks sufficient context and chronology. Finally, as electronic media increasingly pervade our private spaces, we adopt a uniform mode of living in which each person uses the same technology in the same way, a trend that strips away each person's individuality.
It is reasonable to think that historians agree with Birkerts in his belief that we are reading less the printed word, and to believe that they therefore argue heatedly over what to assign their students. At first glance, events like the Civil Rights Movement and the sexual revolution would seem to be more responsible than the electronic media for the increased emphasis on a multicultural perspective of history. It is plausible, however, that the mass media made it possible for events like these to grow into mass movements. Still, the more direct cause of the multicultural perspective would be the events themselves, which would have made historians increasingly aware of the "entrenched ideologies of white males" and increasingly focused on the contributions of women and other races.
As far as the oversimplification of our language, Birkerts appears to have been partially right. He claimed the decreased emphasis on the printed word would lead to an oversimplification of language and history. Out of convenience, we use simplified language in abbreviated texts and e-mails. We hear sound bytes of information on the radio and on television, and read generalized narratives of world events through Internet news articles that can be read in one short sitting. We sit for mere moments to read excerpts about a concept, person, or event.
Still, the availability of convenient sources of quick-read information can easily overshadow the existence of deeper, more thoughtful reading on the same subject. There are huge repositories now of primary-source documents-- look up the "Gutenberg Project," for example-- that give the reader instant access to information that many historians in the recent past lacked, and there has been no other time when there has been greater access to published academic material. True, the existence of such information does not mean people are reading it, but at the same time, it seems reasonable to think it would not exist at all without adequate demand for it.
It could be, of course, that the deeper reading may be taken in by academics themselves and largely ignored by the rest of our culture. This would explain the existence of such reading. We are, however, seeing more people attend universities now than in the past, and though many students may be taking only cursory notice of the required reading, at least they are reading at all, something they may not have done had they moved directly into the workforce. We are focusing less on the printed word, but that has not necessarily led to a lack of deep, more complex reading.
Finally, Birkerts seems to have predicted correctly that the increased use of electronic media would further encourage the loss of privacy that he saw present in the middle of the 1990s. Facebook and Twitter allow others greater access to our personal lives than at any previous time. Whether this is a choice or a cultural expectation is another matter, but it has led to less privacy. Still, our use of electronic media seems to have led to more, not less, individualism. While our parents and family may have had a monopoly on our future and identity in the past, this is no longer true. Media outlets give children and adults alike a prevalence of ideas on what exactly is the best way to perceive life, and what exactly does represent the best profession and future. It is crucial to state, however, that parents and peers still have dominant influence over the beliefs of a child and adolescent, and therefore the simple presence of these varied perspectives does not mean children are adopting them. It only means they are present if a child wants to adopt them.
In the end, we are all oversimplistic and confused dolts, and we can place the blame squarely on the Internet. No, but Birkerts does encourage you to think about just how much the digital age has influenced us, an influence that in his view has been mostly negative. For my part, I appreciated the article, less because I necessarily agreed with it than because it encouraged me to think about the digital age in a new way. In the past, I had thought of our increase in electronic media as the source of our hastened lifestyle and, ironically, as the main reason we have become increasingly isolated. I had never thought it could be responsible for the way we think about information and for how we perceive history and even reality. Thanks for reading.
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