Reading Reflection:

So I have like three Reading Reflections orbiting around my brain right now.  As I was asking myself which one I wanted to consummate, I had a reflection on reading.  All this talk I’ve done on the rise of ebooks lately got me thinking about the future for reading.  Right now, we have technology moving faster than the publishers can keep up with.  But where is it going? Much cyber-ink has been spilled about the changes in today’s reader.  With the information age explosion, readers are really becoming skimmers.  There’s just so much to consume.  Many readers spend just seconds on a blog article(are you still with me?).  The attention span is short these days.  There are numerous casualties of this reality.  We have fewer deep thinkers.  Less reflections.  Information has become a commodity.  Adler &  Van Doren must be upset over the lack of syntopical readers.  Are we becoming any wiser or just obese with information? Two years ago I would have laughably dismissed anyone who suggested blogging to me.  Why are so many people blogging?  Because there are reflectors out there—and they like to blog…and read…and read blogs.  I've already written an article about the invisible audience, which you can read here.  It hit me in my shower today that the future of reading might put the invisible audience right into the book.  If ebooks and the internet marry, would they have bloggie babies?  We already promote study groups and discussion along with reading these days by incorporating questions at the end of chapters.  What if these became interactive comments?  Anyone reading the same book could have immediate discussion.  Authors will have immediate feedback. I don’t know if I like where this is going.  Obviously I like blogging.  I even like cyber-discussions.  But I hope we don’t ever dismiss the value of sitting back and letting our book soak in.  Soak into our day, our cup of coffee, our afternoon errands…our night of sleep.  Sometimes (a lot of the time) we need to just chew on our thoughts and our new perspective before commenting, critiquing, and offering our opinions.  That’s the delight of a book club or review.  We have padding, margins in our thought processes that allow them to ripen a bit before offered.  This is the same reason why I try to write a post at least a day before hitting the “publish” button. And, maybe for another post, how will this affect the way author’s write? What do you think?