December 4, 2006
Last week, the Greenwich Time and Stamford Advocate ran an Op-Ed by Joe Pisani decrying the effects of the “PlayStation effect” on people’s reading habits:
Would any of the young people waiting for the new PlayStation — some of whom had guns and were prepared to commit armed robbery to get one — have shared my enthusiasm?
How has so much changed in 50 years since that book first appeared? Despite all the technological advancements during the last half-century, fewer people read, and fewer, it seems, can read. Equally worrisome, fewer even want to read, which is a social problem created in part by the PlayStation mentality.
Leaving aside Pisani’s fear of heavily-armed PlayStation-craving teenagers, I found his premise to be fairly ridiculous. Hence, I sent in a letter. Below is my original version, a lot of which I had to cut for publication (they have a 450-word limit for letters to the editor):
Dear editor,
As an English teacher by trade, and an avid reader by inclination, I read with interest Joe Pisani’s column entitled “Finding Little Rhyme or Reason in Video Games.” I guess I am predisposed to agree with his main point, which seems to be that the hype surrounding the launch of the PlayStation 3 is a good reason to reexamine why he loves poetry and why he is worried that today’s youth will miss out on the chance to memorize “The Rhime of the Ancient Mariner,” which will be a great loss. But I’ve got some fundamental issues with his opinion on the matter.
I’m not sitting here memorizing Coleridge (though my students memorize Shakespeare), but I as I type this on my laptop, I have three open browser windows bringing me a wealth of information that I am working my way
through. Window #1 has my RSS aggregator, which collects news from literally hundreds of sources around the world (ie the BBC, Iraqi citizens’ blogs about life in their neighborhoods, professional and nonprofessional writers) and displays it in an easy-to-access format. Window #2 has the New York Times Sunday magazine, which led today with an article about educational policy and NCLB. And Window #3 has the good old Greenwich Time. To complete the picture, I’ve got a copy of Moby-Dick next to my bed, as well as notes on Huck Finn and Their Eyes Were Watching God for my classes this week sitting on my desk.Reading isn’t dead, despite what the alarmists say. There was a study done in 2002 by the National Endowment for the Arts, which I suspect was the source of Mr. Pisani’s comment that “[F]ewer people read, and fewer, it seems, can read. Equally worrisome, fewer even want to read, which is a social problem created in part by the PlayStation mentality.” And yes, the survey found that fewer adults “read for pleasure,” which, in my line of work, is certainly dismaying news. But I don’t think that technology is to blame for that. In fact, I would not be surprised if the members of today’s prized 18-34 demographic are reading far more than ever before. I’m firmly in that demographic and I can barely keep up with my daily reading list, which includes anywhere from 30-100 blogs and other online sources (not all are updated regularly), student work, scholarly journals, and keeping up with Ishmael. It’s true that I haven’t purchased any books since the summer, but I’ve patronized the library and used online sources like bookmooch.com to acquire books for my temporary and permanent collections.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that Mr. Pisani shouldn’t panic. Maybe I’m unusual, but I don’t think that technology is ruining reading. People read for different reasons today than they did yesterday. Gone are the days when young men could even hope to believe, as Mr. Pisani did, that reciting verse would attract a mate. And while I like a good poem as much as anyone possibly can, I’m not mourning. I’ll read some brand-new poetry someone wrote for her blog, and I’ll make comment with the poet and offer my observations and critique, and I’ll enjoy reading.
Thoughts?
December 5th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
I would have to agree completely with your point Mr. Wasserman, I find it dismaying for all the technophobes out there seem to turn to videogames as the scapegoat for the incompetence of our society. I mean, the line “some of whom have guns and were PREPARED to commit robbery to get one” (emphasis added) just feels like it came spewing out of Jack Thompson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_%28attorney%29) or any other traditionalist who fears that which he doesn’t understand. See, the thing is that, yes there were several Playstation related robberies, one as someone was walking away from the store, one when someone was going to meet the prospective buyer (not a good idea) and a third where the gamestop being robbed was actually just fraud set up by the employees. Yet, how do I know this all? Because I read. I guess you could suggest that I am one of those young rapscallions under the playstation effect but, for me, that has been a benefit. I love following the digital entertainment industry, and the great thing about it is at such a rapid pace it moves, blogs like joystiq can crank out several pages of original news on the industry PER DAY and when that is coupled with kotaku, next-gen.biz and the slightly more mainstream gamespots and igns out there, that is a lot of text to soak up every night to stay on top of everything.
Yet, somehow there is this stigma that word books are somehow more… imaginative or educational. I would invite any anti-game critic to play through the campaign of Civilization and not gain something similar to an experience from war and peace, or play call of duty 2 and not feel as immersed in the suffering of the front line soldiers on d-day, as any world war II novel. Then there are the games like Call of Cthulhu and Rogue Warrior which actually are based on novels, bridging the gap between the two mediums. Heck, even a sci-fi game like Halo has spawned 4 350 page plus books, which I have read. And if you know me, I don’t read word books unless I really have to. Now, I don’t know if I am the average gamer, but I am almost certain that for every street thug who wants to make a quick buck for a hardware shortage, there are at least two geeks like me who would just rather have a controller than a piece of paper to deliver the same meaning and message.
Unfortunately, like the rock and roll of yesteryear, the positive impact of the playstation effect is not likely to be respected until the playstaion generation can make its way into most of the powerful bodies in society. By that time, we (students) will have become middle aged, and our children found some new fad to play in (matrix anyone?) leaving their keyboards untapped. A whisper of “play sim city, you will have fun” echoes in the past, and the book? If I have anything to say about it, effectively in storage somewhere, while digital copies of every publicly available work is wirelessly sent to anyone and everyone’s pc, pda, you name it; they are still words.
-JohnE
December 6th, 2006 at 11:53 am
The war sections, yeah, though the peace parts are way richer. But as I have a roommate who is completely obsessed with Civ 4, I think I know what you’re talking about.
December 8th, 2006 at 9:49 am
Actually, a study(by the federal board of social trends, or something) has shown that the crime rate amongst teens has gone down since the release of the playstation. A decline that goes along with the fall of other negative things, like school shootings. Nowadays, Thomspon is so concerned with wiping out a huge industry that if there’s a crime with any game within 100 yards, it’s the games fault.
September 16th, 2007 at 9:01 am
[...] time. We can lament the fact that people read fewer Great Books later (or earlier, since I addressed that in December). Maybe I’ll throw in a zinger about tearing down the canon and injecting some democracy [...]