We’re in another round of concern about the “death of the book”, and, in particular, the claimed inability or unwillingness of young people to read full-length books. I’m not going to push too far on the argument that this complaint is ancient, but I can’t resist mentioning the response of my younger brother, who, when asked if he wanted a book for Christmas, answered “thanks, but I already have one”). That was around 50 years ago, and he went on to a very successful legal career.
Fifty years ago, the main competitors for books were TV and radio. Critics at the time decried the passive mode of consuming these broadcast media, compared to the active engagement required by reading. Now, in many respects, the complaint is the opposite. The various services available on the Internet are interactive, and engrossing, finely tuned to keep our attention.
The most notable feature of the Internet, in this context, is the still-central role of reading and writing. That’s diminished a bit as it’s become easier to share video and images on sites like TikTok and YouTube, but there’s still a huge amount of text out there. Lots of people who would probably never have picked up a pen after leaving school fifty years ago are now tapping out messages of various kinds on Facebook, What’sApp and so on.
Then there is the essentially limitless array of online newspapers, magazines, blogs, newsletters and so on. At every level of quality and complexity, and in every imaginable form, the amount of text that’s easily available to read is massively greater than it used to be. And time is finite. Even though I don’t watch much TV, and avoid online video completely, and even though I’m a very fast reader, I don’t have as much time for books as I used to. I’m hoping to change that as I go into retirement, but we’ll have to wait and see.
In these circumstances, the surprise is that books (and newspapers for that matter) have held on as well as they have.
Text has even reconquered territory from video. It’s now commonplace, particularly for young people, to watch video with the subtitles on, apparently so that they can “flick their eyes up and read ahead, then take in the whole scene quickly, and look back down at their phone”. I imagine we will soon be hearing from auteur-style directors complaining that the ubiquity of such subtitles means that the true visual genius of their work is not fully appreciated.
Rather than bemoan the decline of books, this might be a good time to consider why we read (and write) books and what they are good for. Are they essential, or just a specific technology which is less needed now, but for which there is a lot of nostalgia (like cursive handwriting).
I’ll focus on academic work, since it’s what I know best. In this context, it’s striking that some disciplines, like economics, have largely given up on books in favour of journal articles (I’m an exception, but I mostly write “trade” books aimed at a general educated public). In others, like history, having at least one book seems to be essential for tenure. And, in sociology, it’s claimed, there are “book departments” and “article departments”
Are these differences cultural and path-dependent, or do they reflect fundamentally different ways of undertaking and communicating research. I can see arguments for both views, but I’ll leave that up for discussion. Regardless, it seems likely that the shift away from books will continue. Fields where books have been the traditional way of communicating will either have to change, or to treat book reading as a research skill that can’t be assumed and needs to be taught/inculcated.
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Alan White 10.20.24 at 6:04 am
In my field, philosophy (probably like most others presently), books historically are a kind of sedimentary rock that drove discussion about central issues. Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Hegel–all bookish bodies of complex thought that intertwine basic issues of metaphysics and epistemology. Above that layered bedrock modern philosophy has tended to fray into one of the two issues with human interests (fueled by Kant along with Mill) of (meta)ethics interwoven as needed–a kind of unsettled mud-pack not quite hardened into anything recognizable as a world view. The last such big-picture philosopher was Whitehead, nearly a century ago. Most big figures since–Lewis, Putnam, Kripke, etc.–are architects of general stances about realism and such–metaphilosophers– rather than world-makers. So I’d say book-writing has changed itself–into primarily becoming concerned with points of view rather than bold declarations about constitutes reality and knowing about it. Journal articles have then dominated since Whitehead to pursuing specific metaphysical and epistemic issues. But specialization was also driven by the professionalism of the discipline, encouraging it in terms of employment and promotion. So I think big books about world-views are dead for the most part.
David in Tokyo 10.20.24 at 6:58 am
In Japan, literature (both popular and serious) and criticism seem to be alive and well. The four major monthly lit/crit magazines (and their quarterly and academic bretheren) are still going strong, ditto for the popular lit. rags. The two major literary prizes (one for serious lit, one for popular lit, both awarded twice a year) remain major media events. There are multiple librophile YouTube channels overenthusing over the latest light fiction.
I do hear complaints that sales are down, and smaller bookstores are said to be having a rough time of it. Here, my SO far prefers to read social commentary and light lit. on the Kindle, simply because prior to Kindle, that stuff used to result in piles of outdated magazines and pulp fiction clogging up our space. So that’s stuff that’s purchased online, not at a bookstore.
Trying again to find comparative statistics on publishing in Japan v.s. Great Brittain:
One site says: “The size of the publishing market in Japan amounted to 1.6 trillion Japanese yen in 2023, which made it one of the largest publishing markets in the world.” That would make it 1,600 billion yen, or about 10 billion Pounds, vs. GB’s 6 billion Pounds 60% of which is exports. But Japan’s population is almost twice that of GB.
As a Japanophile, you really don’t want to listen too closely to my ranting, but I get the impression that the Japanese really really really like reading and writing Japanese, even though it’s a horrific pain in the butt.
Dunno about academic publishing, but if the above numbers are even close to correcnt, Japan’s publishing world is doing OK…
FWIW, I read a rant somewhere to the effect that folks ranting about kids these days not reading books tend to be talking about Dickens and the dead white male canon, and that in real life Dickens has, for the younger generation become one more generation removed linguistically, and thus requires a much more major “code switch” than it does for my generation. I tried rereading Frankenstein recently, and it was fine, but Middlemarch defeated me something fierce. (I asked an English lit. prof. at a party the other day, and he said, “Yep. Middlemarch is a bear. I wouldn’t want to even think about trying to teach it.”). I have good intentions of giving it another try, though.