[Jang Eun-su's Reading the World Through Books] An Era of Searching but Not Reading Books

Today, while people read a lot of text, the phenomenon of hardly reading books is intensifying. According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's ‘2021 National Reading Survey,’ the adult reading rate is only 47.5%. This means that more than half of adults do not read even one book per year.

Those who “can recognize letters and read text but are unwilling to read books” are called “non-readers.” They can find and read books when absolutely necessary for work, but they do not voluntarily read books in their daily lives. This is a result of the mobile era. Since people can easily obtain necessary information from various media using their mobile phones, the majority no longer regard books as valuable as before.

It is time to be honest. When trying to acquire new information or knowledge, or to enrich one’s culture or common sense, it is more natural to use search engines than books. Considering only information acquisition or exchange, books have now become a weaker medium. News, academic papers, research materials, records, and lectures are mostly produced, distributed, and consumed through online media. The proportion of people who honestly answer the question “Why don’t you read books?” with “Because I use media/content other than books” (26.2%) has rapidly increased in recent years.

According to Marion Wolf, a professor at Tufts University in the United States, “Humans were not originally born to read books.” If we compare the entire history of Homo sapiens to a 24-hour day, writing appeared around 11:02 PM about 8,000 years ago, books were invented at 11:24 PM, and the popularization of books occurred around 11:53 PM, 1,000 years ago. The era when universal education was implemented and illiteracy rates dropped, allowing anyone to read books, occurred in most regions with only the last 15 seconds of the day remaining.

Since the appearance of books, the spread of reading has never stopped anywhere in the world. However, with today’s technological advances, more advantageous means for acquiring knowledge and information have emerged, so insisting on books might be an anachronistic behavior. Just as books suddenly appeared in the world, if they fail to find their reason for existence, they could disappear in an instant.

However, in my opinion, reading books and reading text are different. The knowledge gained from books and the knowledge gained from text are distinctly different. Non-reading causes us to lose much from our minds.

There is already so much information on screens that even a lifetime would not suffice to read it all, and new information is generated infinitely, literally pouring before our eyes. To process more information in a short time, people skim everything or “look at” text without reading carefully. Characteristics of screen reading include “F-shaped reading,” where only titles are read and the reader jumps straight to conclusions, and “zigzag reading,” where only noticeable words or sentences are read.

Marion Wolf says that unlike reading, this kind of reading causes a “constant state of excessive attention” inside us. It is “distraction.” The quality of attention drops, and we cannot maintain concentration for long. In fact, don’t we constantly check our mobile phones from morning till night without a moment’s rest?

French writer Marcel Proust called indiscriminately devouring information “sensual reading.” He warned, “Do not consume as breakfast all the misfortunes and upheavals that happened in the universe in the past 24 hours, the battles, murders, strikes, bankruptcies, fires, poisonings, suicides, divorces that took 50,000 lives, without any real interest.” Then he added the adjective “disgusting” before “sensual.” It is a strong warning not to waste our finite lives on non-essential matters.

There is reading that creates thought and reading that steals thought. No matter how much text we read digitally, deep thinking does not arise from skimming. Of course, if we read carefully one by one, deep thinking might form even in digital reading. But to cultivate deep thinking, it is better to read books containing refined information than just any text.

Books may not be machines that deliver knowledge and information. They only took on that role before mobile media existed. Books are “contemplative media.” Like looking down from the sky, they provide an overall view of the subject. Books are used to comprehensively analyze situations, critically insight, deal with slow wisdom that requires time to understand, and exchange delicate senses. In short, books are machines that create thought. The reading revolution was a thinking revolution, and reading books within us fosters rational and critical reasoning, universal and enlightening thinking, and individual and creative sensibility. Contemplation is the core of human creativity. If reading disappears, as far as we know, no other means can foster creative thinking.

Because books are self-contained texts of a certain length, reading requires a unique style of reading along with long immersion. Without sufficient training, repeated practice, and consistent application in various situations of slow reading (slowly savoring words and pondering sentences), active reading (flipping back and forth and comparing with other books), close reading (carefully accepting the senses, emotions, and logic contained in the book and examining their meaning), and re-reading (reading two or three times to newly savor the meaning), we cannot “read” books.

Reading requires a long time and is very demanding, so among those who have become non-readers, few become readers on their own. Humans cannot read books alone before they are sufficiently trained and accustomed. The choice between reading and non-reading is greatly influenced by the external reading environment, that is, the social environment that supports reading training, rather than human psychological tendencies. Just as parents sat children on their laps and read books to them when they were young, humans can read books only when someone helps them.

It is the era of non-reading. If deep thinking created by reading is needed, we must establish a social support system to help non-readers who do not read books because they are caught up in sensual reading. According to various surveys, expanding libraries and supporting reading communities help turn non-readers into readers. The activation of reading conversations, where people frequently read books and share stories, is our hope. It is time to pay more social attention so that reading does not become the exclusive privilege of a small elite.

Jang Eun-su, Literary Critic