Re:My son is mistaking a smartphone for his mother
by jacobolus on Monday October 04, 2010 @10:57PM
(#1758427)
I don’t quite understand why we’re comparing reading with watching.
Books have always been substantially more interactive than radio or TV, because you can go at your own pace, you can skip forward or back at will, you can take notes in the margins and underline important parts. You can set the book down and pick up another, or look up references when they seem interesting.
Reading books and letters never got less interactive with the development of telephones or IMs, which are the long-distance extension of the face-to-face conversation, and they won’t with the adoption of video chat either. The media (conversation vs. reading/writing) have completely different uses. Writing things down (or recording in general) is a way to crystalize knowledge. Talking in real time is inherently ephemeral and driven by instant reactions.
In response to the grandparent post: sitting down around the dinner table has always been an “interactive audiovisual experience” (tactile too!) – the addition of widespread video-chat seems unlikely to transform society nearly as much as the internet already has.
Books have always been substantially more interactive than radio or TV, because you can go at your own pace, you can skip forward or back at will, you can take notes in the margins and underline important parts. You can set the book down and pick up another, or look up references when they seem interesting.
Reading books and letters never got less interactive with the development of telephones or IMs, which are the long-distance extension of the face-to-face conversation, and they won’t with the adoption of video chat either. The media (conversation vs. reading/writing) have completely different uses. Writing things down (or recording in general) is a way to crystalize knowledge. Talking in real time is inherently ephemeral and driven by instant reactions.
In response to the grandparent post: sitting down around the dinner table has always been an “interactive audiovisual experience” (tactile too!) – the addition of widespread video-chat seems unlikely to transform society nearly as much as the internet already has.