by JT Torres and Lance Easton. Stay tuned for a follow up conversation on digital reading habits!
| "Imagine if you were told that a technology could order up a sermon for a congregation or immediately summon a long-dead historical figure to charm your dinner guests. Maybe you want a mechanical voice to dispense medical advice? Such a technology might even render libraries irrelevant!" |
Certainly, the above references AI. After all, many headlines warn that AI threatens to make books obsolete. Other articles lament students' shortened attention spans and noticeable loss of focus and that fact that students no longer read entire books.
But actually, the above comes from an article published in the New York Times in 1877. The article discusses the creation and potential impact of the phonograph, ending with this note:
| "...though students in college may be required to learn the use of books, just as they now learn the dead languages, they will not be expected to make any practical use of the study. Blessed will be the lot of the small boy of the future. He will never have to learn his letters or wrestle with the spelling-book, and if he does not revere the name of the inventor of the phonograph, he will be utterly destitute of all gratitude." |
Interacting with Texts
Our approach to the continued debate around literacy and technology can be described as, “cautiously all of the above.” From the phonograph to AI, new technologies and modalities do change the ways we read. At the same time, books have endured. While recent data do suggest a decline in people who read an entire book in a single year, we believe that new technologies can, and should, facilitate reader engagement.
Imagine someone who spends a Saturday morning sitting on a couch, holding a controller, and navigating a complex video game that requires remembering spatial locations, social ranks, political systems, and emotional connections with various characters. Despite the evidence suggesting the cognitive benefits of video games, that person might not think they interacted with a text in ways as beneficial as reading.
Recently, educators and scholars have approached literacy through an interactivity framework that recognizes the embodied effort of reading–turning a book’s page, rewinding an audiobook, navigating a video game world–but does not exclusively define reading based on a particular form of interaction. This approach not only frees up educators to map diverse pathways for reading engagement, but it also offers an optimistic outlook on literacy. Fewer people turning a book’s page because they are listening to or otherwise interacting with a text may not mean fewer people are “reading.”
Listening = Reading?
Let’s focus on one particular modality beyond print reading. Almost half of all Americans believe listening to an audiobook is not as cognitively beneficial as reading a print book. And yet, according to cognitive neuroscientist Nadine Gaab, the benefits are pretty much the same.
Audiobooks offer legitimate and new avenues into a text that written works may not be able to reproduce. Most languages are oral, which carries a tremendous amount of nuanced information that can lead to deeper understanding or experiences that cannot be replicated well.
The audiobook The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, reflects these points. One can read the text without knowing or holding a British accent in their head. But when listening to the audiobook, it is escapable. It’s no longer sci-fi humor but very British sci-fi humor. Therefore, the discussions of class, tea, and digital watches strike differently. They’ve become jokes clearly aimed at British culture.
The choice of narrator adds other sophistications that textual reading cannot emulate. Hitchhiker’s Guide has two English-language editions: one read by Douglas Adams (1990) and one by Stephen Fry (2005). Adams’ narration gives us an experience literally from the mouth of the author, which means emphasis, pacing, tone, delivery, etc hold an authorial authenticity that a textual reader will never attain.
Meanwhile, Stephen Fry’s narration helps to identify a new layer of intertextuality. We often read texts with an awareness of their relation to other texts. We bring an inescapable awareness of the author’s previous books, or a text exists in direct relation to previous texts. For instance, reading Percival Everett’s James can stand on its own, but is more meaningful when having read Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In Fry’s case, his previous work included all of the Harry Potter books published up to 2005 (and ultimately the full series). Republishing the audiobook of Hitchhiker’s Guide with Fry was an intentional choice, building upon the 2005 film release but also serving as a bridge for Harry Potter listening fans to find Adams’ work (as the publisher went on to re-record all of the books at this time).
All of which is to say, publishers and listeners have known for decades that the specific narrator adds something meaningful to their experience, connecting a range of texts in their listening experience that cannot happen with textual books.
Use What Works
While it is true that digital ecosystems can contribute to forms of reading like skimming and scrolling that can reinforce bias and shortcut sustained attention, many platforms can also promote the benefits we extoll from print reading. It is not that the benefits are entirely the same, but that methods beyond print also offer meaningful and important ways to comprehend information.
If educators at any level make use of different modalities, they increase the chances their students will connect with a text. Because literacy requires the ability to both sound out and visualize language, the use of different modalities develops the literacy skills needed to deepen their connection with the texts. Students depend on us to show them how to encounter information using every available method of reading that now exists.
JT Torres directs the Houston H. Harte Center for Teaching and Learning at Washington & Lee University. He earned a PhD in Educational Psychology from Washington State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Georgia College & State University. He researches the relationship between literacy, identity, and learning. His co-authored book, How to Use Writing for Teaching and Learning, is informed by his research into the ways students write themselves into a disciplinary identity. Torres approaches literacy as an inclusive process, relying on culturally sustaining practices that frame reading and writing as acts of agency and social engagement, a point frequently made in his co-edited book, How to Incorporate Equity and Justice in Your Teaching. He also explored, in Situated Narratives and Sacred Dance, the ways oral literacy practices sustained the social memory of Arará communities in Cuba. He has two forthcoming books: one focused on assessment, Nonviolent Response: Strategies for Responding to Writing, and the other focused on interdependent instruction, Teaching, Learning, and Caring in Higher Education: How to Cultivate an Interdependent Classrooms.
Lance Eaton started listening to audiobooks in 1995 and hasn't stopped listening since. Besides "reading" thousands of audiobooks, he has been a Judge for the Audies for 20+ years and reviewed audiobooks for Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Audiofile Magazine. When not pontificating the nuances of the current narrator in his ears, he can be found working in higher education, supporting faculty to explore different pedagogies and technologies. He's been a blogger for 15 years, and you can find his work at https://www.byanyothernerd.com/ or https://aiedusimplified.substack.com/.
