Very interesting questions on The Friday Five (
https://thefridayfive.dreamwidth.org). As I was clearing shelves all weekend I am a bit later than normal posting replies.
1. Are books losing importance as a source of information and entertainment?I think we are heading for an energy crisis, we already are in an internet crisis at the moment. Families are scheduling internet time so parents can video call for work which means around 11am most days Netflix goes down, wireless systems like mine get kicked off frequently and even streamed radio get glitchy as it cannot keep up. As for energy, well the lack of leadership is sending us back to the situation in the 1980s/1990s when the network coped by cities planning rolling blackouts. People will have to find non-digital entertainment. Boardgames, puzzles, talking and books are helping people now, and will be helping people in the future.
As the education system is so geared to reading I don't think books will ever lose their importance as information carriers, of course the higher your formal education the more experience with reading for learning so the more likely to have an information library at home. Even if your information library is made up of things you or your friends/colleges have published.
2. Are e-books the death of paper books? Will paper books disappear?Paper books will always have their place because many need the physical object to add their own notes or electricity reasons. It is hard to predict the future because things happen in mysterious ways, many businesses find they use much more paper now than they did before email. A bad computer virus might have people flooding back to paper books.
Audio Books certainly haven't killed off the written word and they can be listened to in a much wider range of environments when books are not appropriate, like driving the morning commute.
3. Should libraries focus on improving their technological resources rather than building a larger collection of paper books?My local library is focusing on other things. They still have books but are trending towards the more unusual, learn-to-read books or out of print, while expanding the library with powertools, specialist cooking items, gardening tools. The library is a home for items people wish to loan and our local tries to be very aware of what people want. However state and national libraries should focus on books and locally produced media, so that there is a record for the future.
4. How important are early reading skills in a child’s academic performance?Not important at all!
There have been studies that show interaction is how babies and toddlers learn, so those early learning books have a farce of 'teaching' without actually effectively adding the information to recall memory. If the child learns from them it is because you sat down and interacted with the child while they used it, so you might as well have used a paper book anyway.
Also I am lucky enough to know of alternative teaching methods from the standard curriculum. Steiner education doesn't teach children to read until 7/8 years old, before then they focus on recall and memorising from voice. Those kids don't experience deficiencies in academic performance. Actually I would say that ultimately Steiner education more consistently creates better adults than mainstream education does.
5. Are people who spend a lot of time reading fiction wasting their time which could be better spent doing more useful activities? If we look at what reading is, an entertainment we can rephrase the question to be wider "Are people who spend a lot of time being entertained wasting their time which could be better spent doing more useful activities?". First, what are these more useful activities? curing cancer perhaps? as for the rest of the question, well closing down entertainment is what we are living in now, and how many millions of people are out of work? Reading is an industry and it employs thousands of people around the world. Is supporting their jobs not a useful activity? Should we all just wait for the movie comes out?...but then movies are picked to be produced by the book sales.
Answering for myself.....Possibly. I know I read more than I probably should, because I know I should wash the windows or exercise or some other item on my to do list. But then reading is on my to do list. I have a 'To Be Read' pile, and yes it is mostly fiction, which is great stress relief. Is stress relief not a useful activity? Medical science things stress relief is one of the more important activities for health.
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