Presenting ideas in a series of "pages" doesn't imply the same relationships as presenting them in a continuous, scrolling or hyperlinked network. We read more and more digitally, in a fragmented and more or less coherent way, with widely varying levels of importance and attention. How is this changing the way we think? We don't have the capacity to process tasks in parallel, and those who claim to do so are deceiving themselves, as with speed-reading. The most we can do is switch from one task to another very quickly, with no real gains.
Watching videos on TikTok or Instagram certainly doesn't have the same effect as reading a book. Reading and books have long been the foundation of academic education. Reading the classics was part of what the "literate" had in common. What contemporary written works are worthy of being on the syllabus, of being known by students? Even if remarkable new works are being created, for the time being we are more often than not content with old literary classics, which rarely correspond to current realities and student concerns.
Watching a movie or listening to a podcast won't improve reading and writing skills, whereas messages sent and received by the hundreds will - which is already an improvement on the pre-digital age, and one that many teachers are putting to good use.
In immersive worlds, reading becomes incidental, and messages are conveyed in a different way. It's more about atmosphere and environment, because the story is never the same and is experienced differently by each participant. The new educational programs obviously have very few digital classics to offer, and yet young people who were born with digital technology are already familiar with them, if only in song. Every age has its own, regardless of what the school suggests, but the school can certainly make better use of the possibilities offered by digital reading, blogs, magazines, creation and distribution sites.
There's no shortage of choice, in fact quite the opposite; it's a question of identifying the most interesting and finding a way to pay attention to them over time.
Denys Lamontagne
Illustration: Mohamed_hassan - Pixabay
