In the history of information technologies, Gutenberg and his printing press are (understandably) treated with the kind of reverence even the most celebrated of modern tech tycoons could only imagine. So perhaps it will come as a surprise that Europe’s literacy rates remained fairly stagnant for centuries after printing presses, originally invented in about 1440, started popping up in major cities across the continent. Progress was inconsistent and unreliable, with literacy rates booming through the 16th century and then stagnating, even declining, across most of Western Europe. Great Britain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy all produced more printed books per capita in 1651–1700 than in 1701–1750.
Then came the early 19th century, which saw enormous changes in the manufacture of paper and improvements on the printing press. These changes both contributed to and resulted from major societal changes, such as the worldwide growth increase in formal education. There were more books than ever and more people who could read them. For some, this looked less like progress and more like a dangerous and destabilizing trend that could threaten not just literature, but the solvency of civilization itself.
There’s obviously a comparison to be made here to television, videogames, the internet, and smartphones – all new inventions that took the world by storm that many consider to be a threat to society. It’s always interesting to look at similar stories and fears from centuries ago.
Television has significantly dumbed people down. It has shortened people’s attention span and can do things to the mind that books cannot. A lot of research has been done about it. I also doubt that books were really that feared anyway. The printing press revolution is so long ago that nobody remembers anything about it and that makes it easy to change details or exaggerate things.
In order to understand the damage that television can do it is better to research the psychology of television instead of assuming that people feared books equally and then assuming that if people fear 2 things equally then those 2 things must be equally threatening.
I am not implying that you are doing that but I just like to put it out here.
I agree to much TV can be bad if watching the wrong stuff but that is the same for any media. A person can read a lot but if it’s just Ann Coulter, religious crap, and romance novels they are going to be stupid. It’s to simplistic to make a blanket statement that TV is worse than books. The fact is there was a higher percentage of uneducated people when only books existed and that was because of the lack of access to them (and other reasons). The more types of media, the more access to knowledge which can be a great equalizer in a society.
You must be over 50. LOL I assume this since you are talking about television and not the Internet. The Internet has done more to wreak our attention spans than TV ever did. The Internet is filled with crap and a lot of fake news but yet it can allow anyone more access to information then ever before in our history. It’s really up to the individual in how they make use of any media to benefit themselves.
But books were feared this way. It was believed that books would cause people’s communication skills to atrophy, and that receiving information in such a one-way exchange (from the book to you) would diminish an individual’s critical thinking skills.
Exactly.
Also, from reading recently a (lenghty… 100 pages) introduction to the “Illiad”, I learned that the ancients even to themselves read aloud, vocalising; only from around III century AD we can confirm the way of reading that’s normal to us, moving eyes through text “without even moving the lips”, like first observers of such readers wondered. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was even feared somehow…
“Books have significantly dumbed people down. It has shortened people’s attention span and can do things to the mind that writing on parch paper cannot. A lot of research has been done about it. I also doubt that papyrus were really that feared anyway. The paper revolution is so long ago that nobody remembers anything about it and that makes it easy to change details or exaggerate things.
In order to understand the damage that books can do it is better to research the psychology of books instead of assuming that people feared papyrus equally and then assuming that if people fear 2 things equally then those 2 things must be equally threatening.
I am not implying that you are doing that but I just like to put it out here.”
Listen, when the printed press was invented, there were lots of fear and nonsensical claims about what mass distribution of printed works would do to society. In fact, a lot of early printshops operated clandestinely because the church, which at the time were the knowers of everything that was good for people, deemed some of the content unholy. Hell, there is a long ass tradition of book burning through history, because some people thought of books as dangerous to other people’s minds.
This is nothing new. It always happens. At some point physicians were convinced that the train would kill scores of people because the human body was not designed to travel at such high speeds.
I think you’ll find that countries with highest rates of TV adoption are also generally most educated. Correlation, not causation, but still… At the very least, TV doesn’t really seem to harm.
Interesting! Looks like any technology that promises to level the playing field will often meet resistance from the “haves”. They hare afraid all all those “have-nots” that will be entering the field.
In a sense “windows-bashing” originates from that same psycology.
Disclaimer: I’m a Linux user.
It is not only resistance that comes from the “haves”. The opposite also happens and seems to happen a lot more. Most of the “haves” from the beginning of the internet were heavily touting the wonders of the technology, the influence on the future and promoting it so it would become available to everyone else. The moment I discover a great resource or peace of technology my first instinct is not “how can I keep this for myself”, but “who else would benefit from this? Let’s share it”
avgalen,
I would say it’s a slightly different situation since our modern society is more egalitarian compared to the past. I would argue that it was the “have nots” that were touting the wonders of technology. People like Engelbart and Berners-Lee had access to resources, but they did not control the resources.
Berners-Lee in fact went against the grain to make his work available to everyone else. Every other big corporation at the time wanted a network that only they controlled. Some would argue Google and Amazon have this desire too. And even to this day there are people who argue Berners-Lee should have patented his work because they only see the dollar signs associated with the patent instead of the global economic benefits of not having a closed network.
“I would say it’s a slightly different situation since our modern society is more egalitarian compared to the past. ”
I kind of disagree. We live in a time where a few hundred individuals own as much as several billion people.
Technology is both good and bad. The same things that make our life easier like never before, also make it easier for a few to accumulate resources and wealth at exponential rates never seen in human history.