Reading the Visual and Preserving the Individual

As I read the selections for this week, three of which were in printed form (Kajer’s chapter and the two online articles) and one in electronic form (Bolter’s ebook), I found my mind organizing ideas and asking questions about the readings. One of these questions was whether Nicholas Carr makes a valid point in his, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” article that printed texts and “quiet spaces” allow for the “undistracted reading of a book.” As I realized my mind was already wandering once I questioned this and that I was distracted by the people and noise that I share my space with, I came to the conclusion that no reading zone is free from all distractions and moved on from this question. My mind quickly moved to inquiries about reading, the importance of the visual and the relationship of body and technology.

Through the opinions offered in this week’s readings, it seems that people have varying interpretations of what reading is and whether or not electronic texts, whether they be electronic books, blogs, or text messages, count as “good” reading. Kajer’s example in her book, Bringing the Outside In, about her student, Gus, who tells her that he likes to read gamer codes and blog postings but states, “I know that stuff doesn’t count” (Kajer 5), poses the question, “ What is “good” reading and should we stem away from the idea that some reading is better than others?.”

In trying to state what “good” reading is and dismissing electronic writing that hasn’t appeared in printed form as bad, we seem to be isolating students from seeing themselves as good readers or readers at all. Gus’s response resembles Nicholas Carr’s acknowledgment in “Is Googling Making Us Stupid” that we are reading more than we did in the 1970s or 1980s but he calls it a “different kind of reading.” The word “different” makes it seem like it is not as good as what was done in previous years, making students like Gus see themselves as non-readers even though they may read in some capacity every day.

I was concerned with Gus’ response and asked my MCAS prep class, comprised of 9th to 12th grade students, if they struggled with reading and what they believed constituted reading. They had a hard time even telling me a name of a book they liked or disliked and told me that when they are told what to read, they become disinterested. I tried telling them that books are like people and that you may not like them at first, but when once you communicate with them, you may realize that you have something in common. But in thinking about my analogy later in the day, I realized that even I said books, subconsciously seeing that as the main form of reading and disregarding online postings and newspaper articles. Similar to Kajer, who points out in her book that she only saw reading as pertaining to learning how to pronounce words, some individuals associate reading with printed books that are part of a literary canon and have been deemed as classics. So again I return to the question, what is “good” reading and should this idea even exist in today’s world with students who struggle with reading comprehension (and do not need people telling them that what they read isn’t valid even though they’re reading)? Reading at even a seemingly low level, like that of reading a recipe, can provoke higher level thinking. As an individual reads the list of ingredients and thinks about which comes first, considering what would happen if step 5 came before step 3, or if the food was left in the oven too long, he/she is putting information together and thinking about relationships to one another. This meaning making process is what we ask students to do on a daily basis. If we encourage students to read, regardless if it is in printed or electronic form, we may allow them to see that reading is something they do for fun and do it without realizing it in their everyday life.

While there is the question about what good reading is, there is also the concern about how influential the visual is in reading and whether the text is being overlooked. Bolter states in Chapter 4 of Writing Spaces that the visual is becoming primary and the text becomes secondary with the addition of new electronic technologies. Newspapers now resemble web pages and include images at the forefront and brief summaries for the table of contents. This is evident in papers such as The Boston Herald that display a cover picture in color that is almost as big as the actual page, leaving little room for text. The reader’s eyes are drawn to the picture, pulling them into the cover story. But even though the picture is obviously large and in the reader’s face, is the visual taking away from a reader’s experience with reading text or making him/her less likely to analyze the printed word still?

Both articles that I read for this week’s reading included images that occupied a fair amount of room and came before the text of the article, but I did not find myself drawn to the pictures and forgetting about the text that I wanted to read. Below is the image from Jamais Cascio’s “Get Smarter” article and my reactions to the photograph:

Image: Anastasia Vasilakis (borrowed from the “Get Smarter” article in The Atlantic)

When I first saw this image, I noticed the swirl of colors and the man who seems to be free-falling into a fast-moving whirl pool. Upon looking at it now, I notice more of the shadows and how the colors do not have clearly defined lines. Even though I note these things, I honestly did not spend much time looking at this image before moving on to read the article, and once I finished the article, I didn’t think about the image that I first saw.
Although I note my reaction and realize that others may have spent more time looking at the image, especially those who are attracted to art or digital manipulations, I wonder how much images influence us or if we take images for granted. Nicholas Carr writes about the numerous Google ads that pop up as we surf the web and move from site to site, but when the ads are off on the side of the screen, the words and titles of web pages are directly in the viewer’s eyes. How many of us have clicked on one of the feature ads because we were drawn to them on the side of the page? Occasionally, I will click on an ad accidentally, but find myself closing out of it before I even have the chance to take a good look at it.

While Bolter states in Writing Spaces that images stand out on the page, “transforming us from readers to viewers” (56), they also serve to aid those who are visual learners and obtain knowledge best with pictures rather than words, which may seem to be jumbled together for those who have a reading disorder. Bolter does make a good point that we view images, in movies, billboards, television commercials, etc. and therefore are enticed by these. But these same images that may entertain us may help to provoke a student’s memory. Graphic novels is a good medium that shows how both text and image can be joined simultaneously, serving to entertain the reader but also provide the reader with a narrative for analysis. When I surveyed some of my students about graphic novels, they said that they liked reading plot details in a horizontal fashion rather than reading vertically down a page. For the visual learners, seeing the picture accompany text allows them to remember what happens in the story by visualizing the image.

Electronic technology has helped people rethink about reading and the work of the visual, but it also questions the relationship between the human body and technology. Cascio in “Get Smarter” speaks of augmentations through new electronic technologies, stating, “They’re very much a part of who we are today: they’re physically separate from us, but we and they are becoming cognitively inseparable.” It is as if our mind and thinking is joined with technology; we depend on technology to think and make decisions. Does technology really impact our lives to this extent and how should we feel? Cascio’s idea of body and technology being joined is similar to T.S. Eliot’s use of metonymy The Wasteland http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/18993, referring to the woman as the typewriter and using the word “hands” to refer to the sailor. The typewriter takes the place of the human and is able to increase production, but at the same time, T.S. Eliot makes it known that the human’s individuality is at stake. Similar to how people were concerned about industrialization causing the individual to lose its importance in the workforce, people, such as Nicholas Carr, who says that artificial intelligence would make thinking a “mechanical process, a series of discrete steps that can be isolated” (“Get Smart”), see technology as forming us to become mechanized without feelings. Although we may be ten, fifty, or a hundred years away from seeing artificial intelligence enacted in the masses, we are in a time where our electronic devices do seem to be a part of us. Many teenagers, and even adults, cannot go longer than a day or even an hour without their cell phone by their side. People constantly have their phone in their hands as if it is an extra appendage. The electronic policy at the school I teach at states that if a student is caught using their cell phone in school, he/she will have the option for a one day suspension or a week without their phone. Many students choose the one day suspension because they cannot imagine going seven days without using their phone, which they see as their contact to the outside world, especially for many who do not like to talk to others in public. It is as if electronic devices are a necessity rather than a luxury, but does this necessarily mean that the joining of body and technology is a bad thing? Those same students, who use their phone to gossip with their friends, may use the internet to play online word games or look up information that they do not know.

New electronic technologies have provoked much debate over what constitutes reading and whether the individual is losing his/her sense of self with new technologies. While there will always be many skeptics when something new is introduced, or something that enhances an older way, there are those that who will see these new tools as benefits. I like to think that new technologies can be used to help us in our daily lives when used in moderation, just like anything else.