Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Over the weekend, Motoko Rich had a piece in The New York Times entitled “A Good Mystery: Why We Read.” Using the recent NEA report “To Read or Not To Read” as a springboard, Rich asks a very basic question: “Why do we read?” But first, in the shadow of the NEA’s pessimistic report, she sets the stage by also asking the following: “But is all hope gone, or will people still be drawn to the literary landscape? And what is it, exactly, that turns someone into a book lover who keeps coming back for more?” She then, in order to find the answer to why people read, asks a few people how they were initially turned on to reading. And while many writers of course have eloquent thoughts on the subject (including Junot Diaz, who is quoted in the piece), the problem with such tales is that the fan of every conceivable art form (not to mention hobby) has one. Yes, people discover things, and then get into them and love them. And yes, people will always do that with books. But that doesn’t mean that books are relevant, alive, or important in our society. Far from it. After all, someone, somewhere is discovering Desmond Dekker for the first time, and because of this will get into ska music. But that doesn’t mean that ska is either popular or relevant (indeed, it’s quite the opposite). That being said, there are currently small enclaves of fervent fans who are still into ska, and for them it’s their music of choice. But they exist outside the mainstream of music and the discussion taking place around it. And this, to a certain extent, is what’s going to happen more and more with books. (Indeed, the fact that we’re discussing readers as a potentially dying breed shows that it’s happening already.) So instead of asking, “Why do we read?,” what’s more interesting to ask is, What is everyone doing instead of reading? Because the Web, and all its attractions (from Myspace and Facebook to Youtube and iTunes), is luring away the younger generations for whom a computer provides the entry to another world. As Norman Mailer once said of his generation, “fiction was everything.” And now, even though young kids will of course still discover writers the way that Diaz describes in the Times piece, more and more kids are having their time sapped, and their imaginations snatched, by other, more immersive technological interfaces. And older generations can debate the merits of electronic versus print books (with ardent fans on both sides), but younger generations are skipping the debate altogether. So while the “literary landscape” that Rich refers to in her essay will always exist, that landscape — instead of looking like a Where’s Waldo illustration stuffed with figures — will increasingly resemble a sparsely populated Hopper painting.