No matter my age, the start of the school year stirs thoughts on the importance of education and the role reading and books play in learning. The rise of the digital world places a premium on interaction with phones and computers, but the act of reading itself remains essential to enhance the outlook of anyone’s life. Most books live a life online, as well as on paper these days, thus access to these repositories of knowledge and information is more widespread than ever.
Platforms such as Facebook give us ways to share and transmit insights gained through reading and learning that go beyond the role of what we now call “social media.” What we read in books can be shared instantly with other people, who may respond with viewpoints of their own. This leads to the idea that the more a person reads, the more they know to communicate with other people. Technologies such as Skype make this type of interaction possible even on a visual level.
Although I hope books on paper and print endure in our society, digital editions make reading, learning and transmission of knowledge even more widespread. The proliferation of electronic tablets among students testifies to the easier, more compact transportation of these stores of information. Knowledge once channeled through language at first only spoken, then written and, finally, printed now finds itself digitized on handheld devices.
Reading books is a favorite pastime of mine, and this gives what I write here a personal stake and motivation. I want book-reading to endure as a mode of learning and entertainment. The fact that reading more often takes the form of interactions with machines instead of paper acts as a change that multiplies the act of reading instead of reducing it.
I have my share of print books, and I have electronic devices containing e-books. The form these works takes is not as important as the fact that I interact with words and the ideas they convey to me. That this enriches my interactions with other people serves as one of the roles books play in an informed society. People have knowledge not only to have it but also to share it with others. In a day in which we complain about social isolation, this avenue remains open.
After all, people write books for people to read. This makes for an exchange on a person-to-person level from the start. It leaves readers and receptive listeners with the opportunity to talk or write about what they feel the author expressed with his words.
I encourage everyone to open a book or a tablet and go on a reading journey. Because I hear a lot of talk these days about a “divided society,” reading needs to serve as something that unites people on a conversational level. Discussions start with words on a page — whether that page makes itself of paper or cyberspace. Books play a role in everyday education and edification — and not just the valuable kind that happens in a classroom.
In this same vein, libraries serve as vital institutions in our country, and I hope these places endure as homes for our treasured books. The fact that we carry our own libraries on electronic tablets extends the influence that stacks of pages in physical places play in our lives. No matter where we go as individuals or as a people, I hope we take the written word as good company. This ensures that having something to talk about with someone else never runs out of fashion.
Scott Toler is a licensed mental health counselor who lives in Plant City. For more, email to etoler25@tampabay.rr.com.
