Reading Matters: A History for the Digital Age

In this wide-ranging survey of the history of reading and writing, religious studies scholar Halldorf (Iconoclasm) traces how past technological revolutions in the written word have so thoroughly altered how people engage with information that it has led to sweeping cultural change. Among the major shifts he highlights are the early medieval move from delicate scrolls to more “convenient” codices, which allowed reading to evolve from a “sacred” to a more secular pastime; the impact the late medieval development of the index had on the emergence of modern academia; and the role industrialized, commercial printing played in the birth of nationalism, as mass produced books forged and solidified shared national identities. Today, he notes, the digital age has led a troubling decline of “deep” reading and a move to skimming, fostered by smartphones’ potential for endless scroll. (Though he notes that reading on screens is not inherently problematic—there’s obviously a huge difference, he acknowledges, between “reading on your phone” and “using a tablet specifically designed for reading.”) In an ironic concluding twist, he muses that, even as he was putting the final touches on his book, emergent AI technologies, with their ability to summarize large texts, were rapidly turning skimming into yet another “obsolete” skill. It’s a comprehensive, thought-provoking overview of how reading technology impacts the very fabric of society. (May)