The TCU Bookstore is a rich source of information. But, how many of us actually take advantage of it? Let’s imagine for a moment how many books we would be able to read if we were to stop browsing Facebook and Myspace on a daily basis.
The writer Doris Lessing was recently awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature. In response to this, she wrote an acceptance speech that quickly caused controversy. The text can be found here .
In it, Lessing adopts a nostalgic and pessimistic position towards the new digital era, ruled mainly by the Internet and TV. She sharply criticizes the Internet for seducing “a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging”.
Lessing sets up her argument by alluding to her visit to Zimbabwe and elaborately describing how “everyone, begged for books.” She then goes on to admire their “hunger for books” despite the fact that most of them have not even been properly fed. It is obvious that Lessing yearns to go back to the Golden Age of print; to an era where everybody who could read just couldn’t get enough of knowledge. For her, literature constitutes education.
Nevertheless, she contrasts Zimbabwe’s population with British boys who have been exposed to Internet and are an active part of today’s media culture. According to Lessing, “we are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women, who have had years of education, to know nothing of the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some specialty or other, for instance, computers.” Thus, she criticizes how people with a wide access to information are those who access it the least, hence not educating themselves as thoroughly as they could.
It is obvious that Lessing views the Internet as a cause of change. She takes a deterministic standpoint by claiming that “what has happened to us is an amazing invention – computers and the internet and TV. It is a revolution.” A revolution that she views with disgrace, since it has caused the rapid decline of desire for knowledge. She places books and education/knowledge in a parallel, calling upon several examples of famed writers who have reached their zenith because they were exposed to books since they were young. “In order to write, in order to make literature, there must be a close connection with libraries, books, the tradition.”
Her speech received a variety of opposing and similar responses.
John Connell argues that the world is not fragmented, but rather diverse. Unlike her, he conceives the shift that Lessing dislikes as part of a more complex change: “If any certainties once perceived as positive are now no longer such, is that necessarily because our modern condition is somehow less healthy or is it simply a reflection of major shifts in social, political and economic realities, and therefore consequentially of changing priorities and of shifting values?” Thus, he would agree with the theory that culture determines technology, and not the other way around, like Lessing. Finally, Connell believes that it is quixotic to try to remove today’s generation from technology only “to be replaced by some misty golden age when schoolchildren – eager scholars all – devoured yet another classic text before breakfast each morning.” Similarly, Duncan Riley from TechCrunch argues that the Internet has made education available to many people.
On the other hand, Alan replies to a post by arguing in favor of Lessing. He too takes a deterministic viewpoint and notes that “contemporary electronic media has left a generation of children with atrophied imaginative powers.” He makes an example by saying that his daughter, who attends a good public school, “rarely picks up a book out of [her] own free will and [her] knowledge of literature and geography is shockingly inadequate.” Hence, media has inflicted damage onto today’s generations.
So, which side of the spectrum holds more truth?
Doris Lessing
I believe that Lessing has a good argument but I wouldnt necessarily call it a right or wrong one. I believe that the growth and dependence upon technology such as the internet, television, and video games for today’s use it mostly just unfortunate. The fact that hours upon hours are spent on Facebook or Myspace, watching reality shows, and playing Guitar Hero is not a good use of time. I think it is sad that conversations about what Britney Spears did today or who has the highest score on Rock Band should and could become better conversations about religion, politics, philosophy, or education.
Another good thing to keep in mind is that when the emergence of books began everyone wanted to read a book, everyone had to have a book, and everyone talked about what they read. Now with the emergence of the internet everyone wants to use it, everyone has to have it, and everyone DOES talk about what they do on it.
Comment by Leslie Bryant — January 30, 2008 @ 9:12 pm
The motivation of education has not lessened with technological developments. Therefore I cannot agree that the desire for knowledge has greatly declined. I believe it is up to each person’s self motivation, his educators, mentors, and other significant influentials to help stimulate a desire to learn no matter through what medium. I understand Lessing’s argument that we are in a digital era with a fragmenting culture, but in general, I believe it has to do with what you do with the wide access to information, because I mean honestly, when I’m curious about something it’s simple to go online to look it up and I do. It’s less expensive and usually more up to date. I can see how our intellectual culture is different now that it was back in the “Golden Age of Print,” but I don’t think its made such a terrible decline, just different adjustments.
Comment by Hillary Hummel — January 31, 2008 @ 5:38 pm
I thoroughly enjoyed Lessing’s acceptance speech and believe she made some very valid points. I personally love to read books and am constantly distracted by my computer, ESPN(T.V.), and the occasional game of Madden. Yes, we are in a digital era. I agree we fail to utilize many of the great literary sources that are available to us today. I believe Lessing makes a great point because i think this is completely situational, where in if those Zimbabwe people had access to the internet, T.V., etc.. they might take literature for granted as well. I don’t honestly think this is what Lessing is saying and i strongly admire their “hunger for books” in Africa, but I feel like when we have never known any different its hard to condemn our negligence for reading. I am a reader myself, but I am guilty of getting caught in this digital era as well. I believe she makes great points, however I will not say that this digital era has transgressed us at all.
Comment by Wilkins Mclaughlin — January 31, 2008 @ 9:18 pm
Lessing has a very reasonable point of view that technology is changing the world that we live in, especially in America. I believe her experience in other countries can not be carried over to that of the learning environment in the United States. She says, that other people, in other countries were “hungry for books”. The problem that Lessing is overlooking is the fact that just because the medium of learning and sharing knowledge has shifted away from books into the digital and electronic does not mean that we do not hunger for information. In fact, I believe that the opposite is true. The internet has given no limits to what a person can learn because theoretically you could ask anyone in the world a question and have an interaction. Where although books are a good resource, they can only give you the information that is written on their pages. A good example, is this very class without the internet our communication could not extended past the classroom. Honestly, I believe that Lessing is mostly likely resistant to change(maybe due to her age), and there is no reason for her to accept a new form of textual information. Our culture is shifting to a more abstract view on learning and just because the times are changing is no cause for alarm for the demise of the intellectual world. It is best to think of the digital era as a new chapter in a never ending novel.
Comment by Pamela Robinson — January 31, 2008 @ 11:19 pm
It would be great if we all still lived our lives like “Leave it to Beaver.” Where all the houses had white picket fences, the wives wore pearls, the husbands were never late for dinner, and the kids rode bikes and read books. But life changes, constantly. I understand how Lessing’s views as a writer are not the same as someone who is 20 and uses the internet on a daily basis, but the advances that have been made in technology are fascinating. Why would she want people to stop the world from moving forward? Don’t get me wrong I love books and I try to read as often as possible; which unfortunately is just on vacations. But I agree with John Connell, WE determine how far technology can go. So like I said, why slow it down? I can see how there are certain wastes of the internet and television, such as on line gaming and how people just “watch TV” not necessarily for any such purpose. But these are luxuries that my generation has grown up with, and no one’s opinion is going to be swayed by an 88 year old woman, no matter how brilliant, who most likely doesn’t fully understand all the capabilities of internet and gets confused by the computer or even something such as the remote control, which we find so simple.
Comment by Rachel Holt — January 31, 2008 @ 11:39 pm
What so many of these people discout is the incredible amount of resources that are on the internet. In a matter of minutes, you can find the definition to a word, the statistics of a country from the cia, or even your friend’s telephone number. They also tend to forget the books that are just leisure reading. Who of these people will boast of the wonderful nature of print while standing next to a stack of Harlequin Romances? Of course, TCU bookstore has a wealth of information on it’s stacks, but it also has comic books, vampire novels, romance novels etc. I am not opposed to these books, I only believe that they should all be taken in with self-control. The same should be applied to chat rooms, facebook, and blogging. There is a reason we are called the “Information Age”; people, teens and young adults especially, are flooded with facts, figures, statistics, and names every minute. There are advantages to both mediums as well as drawbacks and self control is the key to getting the best out of each source.
Comment by Alyse Lasley — February 1, 2008 @ 3:02 am
I guess it is easy to see both sides of this argument but of course, being part of the generation of all of these amazing technological advances, I am a little biased. I can see Lessing’s point about people depending more on the internet other than books but isn’t that understandable. The internet provides a wide variety of activities and opportunities for learning. Yes, the internet does have a lot of distractions that people find entertaining and end up spending their days surfing the web, but that doesn’t mean the opportunity for learning is not there. It is the person’s responsibility to use the internet to find what they need to in order to expand their knowledge. It is on the person if they choose to play internet games over looking up something useful for their own education. It’s their choice. The internet is overflowing with information and it makes it very simple to get a hold of. I admit that I would much rather type in a few key words to find what I am looking for than going through row after row of books looking for the right one hoping that it will be there. On the internet, you can go straight to what you need within the text saving time. Lessing does put her argument very eloquently but she is also biased towards, what she grew up with, print. She is from the “Golden Age of Print” whereas we have grown up with technology. Times have changed and it will keep doing so. The internet is too far set into this generation that I don’t see it going anywhere. It can only get faster, better, and more convenient.
Comment by Samantha Hayes — February 1, 2008 @ 3:32 am
Lessing’s argument is an interesting one, however i strongly agree with Alyse, when she says that the internet is incredible when it comes to the information available. You can search for information about anyone or anything. Lessing’s argument almost reminds me of a little old lady who doesn’t know how to use new technology and instead of taking time to learn what a gift it can be to our culture, she just criticizes it. You can make an argument that new media has taken away from literature, but again i agree with Alyse, if you like to read for fun, you will find time to read for fun. I admit i spend quite a lot of time online, whether it be for school or pleasure, I still make time to read for pleasure. I would still read the same amount whether i had internet or not because I read when I want to read, i would find other things to do if the technological medium was absent. Ultimately, again i agree with Alyse, it is about self control as is anything in life, even with literature. You have other responsibilities, and couldn’t read all day long if technology was absent. I would still have other things to do and i would have to exhibit self control when reading.
Comment by Alex Perryman — February 1, 2008 @ 3:53 am
Times have changed a lot since the day reading was seen as a privilege rather than a chore in our society. Whether or not the advances in technology molded our culture in this manner is hard to say, especially when I have never experienced a day when technology wasn’t constantly advancing. I believe it is a mutual effect; however, in this case I would agree most with Connell. I believe that our culture wants quicker news, more free time, better information and as a result, technology molded in that direction. It is inevitable that a society that has little to nothing, such as the one in Zimbabwe, will want something they don’t have. This is where I agree with Lessing. The literature they have the less they hunger for it, just like any other necessity. We no longer have children who “hunger for knowledge” because it is ingrained as part of their everyday lives. They, thus, have the opportunity to expand and do extracurricular activities that help them grow in a different way. No longer do they hunger literature, but they hunger a privilege society didn’t have before….free time.
Comment by Andrea Dominguez — February 1, 2008 @ 4:49 am
The debate over the supposed downfall of the intellectual capabilities of my generation have been greatly overestimated. We have simply grown up in a more technologically advances society that stresses the importance of technology. There are multiple forms of intelligence and particular forms of it characterize a decade. Our generation is characterized by the computer and the internet.
The “hunger for books” that is addressed is not dead. It may have been lessened due to the internet, but it is certainly not dead. The internet has allowed global awareness and accessibility. Information can be shared around the planet. Everything is easily accessibly, easy to find and easy to summarize. The internet is not to blame for the lack of interest in reading books. Entire books, encyclopedias and poems are available on the internet. Reading itself is not the issue.
Fostering the importance of reading lies with our educational values and upbringing. My parents emphasized the simple need to read. To read books and the newspaper are essential to being informed. However, all the information that is available in print is easily and equally found on the internet. The internet is about information being a click away. Books, and more importantly, knowledge are simply a click away.
Comment by Jamie Small — February 1, 2008 @ 5:00 am
Lessing’s acceptance speech presents her viewpoint in a very emotionally appealing way. Any individual who lives in better conditions than those people in Zimbabwe are drawn to respond with a shocking reality of the negligence they take part in towards their readily available books(knowledge). Any experienced and educated public speaker knows that presenting information tied to your listeners emotions is a good technique to swing them to your side. With her heart felt stories, Doris Lessing probably knew what she was doing. Now the question stands, is her side really worth sticking with? Although Lessing’s point on today’s generation’s lack of a “hunger for books” is mostly valid, I agree with John Connell in that this shift that lessened the want to learn is probably more so “a reflection of major shifts in social, political and economic realities.” Sure chat rooms, blogging, and web surfing distract us from print based information but many forms of temptation has existed for many years to take us away from the “Golden Age.” Just because we are in the “Information Age” dominated by the Internet, and T.V., does not mean these recent technological advances are the sole cause of division from printed material. “Culture shapes technology”, not the other way around. We live in a different culture in today’s world. Our culture has made a need for faster systems of simpler information, just like past culture’s made a need for the printing press, or radio. Both sides of the spectrum include necessary information to ponder on. Determining which is MORE truthful is hard to say. All in all, Lessing made a great effort to present her view of technological determinism, but the real truth behind the spectrums, lies in the audience’s ability to look past her heart tugging story.
Comment by Hannah Harvey — February 1, 2008 @ 5:35 am
I believe that the internet has a great influence on today’s society in a sense that it has ‘dumbed’ down our knowledge in some fields, but gained in others. We do not need to know everything about geography because the internet is right there to give us our information that we need. For example, map quest. But we have gained in other knowledge. Without the use of technology, surgery, prosthetic limbs, eye sight, medicine, and other things would not be where they are today. If technology is affected our intelligence in a negative way, then how come we still are inventing new things that is making lives easier and giving others a chance to experience life and freedom? The generation before us would have never dreamed of the things we are inventing now and coming up with. I think our knowledge now and the knowledge back then are on opposite ends. More important subjects are needed for today’s world. For example, my mom was watching me one day do some math homework in high school and was amazed in what I was doing and said they never had to learn anything like that in school. The need for mathematics are astronomical. There is a lot of math in everything we do now. I can sort of see where they are coming from though. I see the generation after me, and I can’t believe what all they are doing. The video games and tv shows are ridiculously violent and morbid now days for the younger audience and pregnancy rates are increasing for this age as well. The internet has a lot of information on anything and it is easy for young minds to be curious and go explore what things really mean. Parents used to get away with the stork brought babies into the world, but since the knowledge is at the young one’s finger tips, parents can no longer say things like that. Just like the older generation frowns upon us, we frown upon the younger generation, although I think it is not technology necessarily, but what the idea of entertainment is coming to.
Comment by Amber Orebaugh — February 1, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
Lessing’s argument states that recent technological advances have caused the population to move away from learning and understanding which was so important during the days of print. She also argues that by specializing in only certain areas of subjects, we have limited ourselves and in return have lost valuable skills. Although her argument brings up good points, I want to point out that she contradicts herself. Throughout the print age and present day, people have always specialized in certain areas of subject like medicine, law, literature, history. This is because there is so much information, more now than ever before, and it is impossible for one person to know everything there is to know about the world. As specialization gets more and more specific, people can learn more about certain things that were never understood in past. For example, we are finding cures for diseases, taking expeditions to mars via robots, and discovering ways to manipulate DNA. By approaching the matter of technology in this manner, I see television and the internet as a positive influence in the lives of everyone today. Furthermore, we have the option to choose what information we want to know opposed to only learning about what a few newspapers or print sources say about a few subjects. Today, people can go online and research ultimately anything. This was not available in the days of print, so I argue that Lessing is ignoring all of the advancements to knowledge and learning that technology has provided society.
Comment by Sarah Low — February 1, 2008 @ 4:05 pm
While Lessing’s story is compelling and heartfelt, her means of getting her point across and swinging others’ opinions is based on emotion, and not rational thought. It is true that developed countries have an wealth of information at our fingertips, and countries such as Zimbabwe do not. But to criticize the developed countries for not “taking advantage” of these opportunities is ludicrous. Clearly, as the Information Age has begun, it has led to improvements in the fields of education, science, and medicine. This is clearly due to an increase in the sharing of knowledge, which Lessing is claiming that we are not taking part in. To put ALL of the information available to us to use would be nearly impossible. The key to a successful society is using the resources available as the people see fit to better themselves. And while Lessing may not look at the children in developed countries and sense a “hunger for knowledge,” that is because the hunger is instilled in us, and we no longer need to feed that knowledge with books alone.
Comment by Bobby Wilson — February 1, 2008 @ 4:21 pm