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Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, “kids these days” are not reading on thin slices of trees marked with chemicals. They are reading o
by PraetorianGourd 4y ago
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, “kids these days” are not reading on thin slices of trees marked with chemicals. They are reading on iPads, Samsung Galaxies. Whatever their parents hand them while they are cooking dinner. And yes, they may be learning by watching videos or playing games.
Look I love reading, but I think a big part my love for reading is that it was how I was introduced to learning and knowledge. The way we fetishize learning through reading some somewhat troubling. The window in which printing was cheap enough that normal people could afford books — but other tech hadn’t been adopted yet — is honestly decades long. It just so happens to be during the decades that most of us came of age.
Reading is great, talking is great, games are great. Learning is great. Don’t worship one at the expense of the rest
- WalterBright 4y agoMore like a couple centuries long. Benjamin Franklin didn't just print books for the elite.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoStill expensive compared to mass market paperbacks where the economics support a significant portion going unsold and sent off to the shredder unread.
- WalterBright 4y agoThe printing business took off because it was aimed at the mass market. Even the elite will only buy one copy of a book - not enough to support a printer. "In the first decade of the 1500s CE, it is estimated 2 million books were printed in Europe, up to 20 million by 1550 CE, and around 150 million by 1600 CE" -- google On a related note, the industrial revolution did not make things for the wealthy. They made things for the mass market. Luxury yachts, for example, are one-offs made by artisans, not factories.
- PraetorianGourd 4y agoThe author is writing specifically about children’s books, which have been a thing for far less time that what has elapsed since Benny Franklin printed.