I personally don’t need convincing that reading is essential to our health and happiness. But two recent articles (really, a report and an essay) have reminded me of that rudimentary, but oft ignored, fact.
Galleycat, in Want to Feel Better About Yourself? Read a Book, cites a recent survey concerning “Optimism”:
While the official survey report zeroed in on the importance of a constellation [of] live events like music concerts, theatrical performances, and speeches, the one “optimism booster” cited by more respondents than any other—88 percent—was “books.” Unfortunately, that’s not broken down by categories, so it’s not quite clear whether fiction or non-fiction lifts people’s spirits, so you should probably read a little of both, just to be on the safe side. (emphasis mine)
This isn’t the first such survey to indicate that people who develop the discipline of reading are relatively more optimistic, healthy, or well-adjusted than people who don’t. However, L.A. Times Book Editor David L. Ulin, in The Lost Art of Reading takes it a step deeper by noting the culture that militates against contemplative readers:
Reading is an act of contemplation, perhaps the only act in which we allow ourselves to merge with the consciousness of another human being. We possess the books we read, animating the waiting stillness of their language, but they possess us also, filling us with thoughts and observations, asking us to make them part of ourselves. This is what Conroy was hinting at in his account of adolescence, the way books enlarge us by giving direct access to experiences not our own. In order for this to work, however, we need a certain type of silence, an ability to filter out the noise.
Such a state is increasingly elusive in our over-networked culture, in which every rumor and mundanity is blogged and tweeted. Today, it seems it is not contemplation we seek but an odd sort of distraction masquerading as being in the know. Why? Because of the illusion that illumination is based on speed, that it is more important to react than to think, that we live in a culture in which something is attached to every bit of time. (emphasis mine)
Funny how I keep coming back to Neil Postman’s thesis in his classic Amusing Ourselves to Death — electronic media degrades our ability to think. Blogging, texting, tweeting, YouTubing, and good ol’ BoobTubing, may create an illusion that we’re up on things. But if the above two observations are true, not only does our “over-networked culture” militate against contemplative readers, it ultimately supplants that contemplation with a skittish sort of voyeurism. Oh well. So we’re not happy. Or very focused. At least we’re up on the latest rumors…
I tweeted this!