Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ In Praise of Print: Why Reading Remains Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Some people may appreciate this defense of traditional reading in print books, including especially science fiction. As someone who read thousands of science fiction books before the digital age arrived in force, I can attest to their value - but can I say that without reading print novels I wouldn't have arrived at 'interiority'? "I read novels to indulge in a concentrated and directed inner activity that parallels - and thereby tunes up, accentuates - my own inner life," writes Ed Simon. Novels do work - but, I think, so do the rich content experiences I have in a digital world. And I am very wary of denying that others have the sort of inner life I do, as it seems to me to be a way of dehumanizing them.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Dec 15, 2024 7:45 p.m.

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