Staying Awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading

In the article, “Staying Awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading” by Ursula K. Le Guin, she states that the demise of reading is due to the lack of effort put into the activity of reading. She states that reading is “active, an act of attention, of absorbed alertness,” then she goes on to compare the activity to hunting and gathering. Going through time, Guin compares reading in the past, to reading now, and how it is valued less in society and the standards of reading have worsened. Reading has declined, she states, because of the media’s control over what books are produced. If it is not going to make a profit, then it is not created or put out to the public and that, Guin argues, is partly why reading has declined.

We chose this article because it has a reoccuring theme which we found throughout the other articles we chose; it is the idea of the evolution of technology and how it is hindering our reading skills. This is our "Mother article" which we will be referring back to time and time again to connect our other sources back to this one. Key words such as literacy, social, active, and collaboration are key words used to further the author's purpose. Those words are shown in order to show how reading has progressed from a social activity to a physical activity that no one is willing to do anymore. Reading is evolving around technology and throughout this guide you will see how others feel about it.

#books #reading #attention #standards #demise