Technology Is Changing Reading

The advent of the Internet has brought enormous changes to human life; primarily, by reducing costs and simplifying the way to obtain information. With a computer and an internet connection it’s now possible to perform various activities, such as planning holidays, booking hotels or tickets flights, choosing a restaurant for dinner, chatting with friends, writing on facebook, checking e-mails, and reading e-books. The Internet has the ability to connect people and allows them to share knowledge and information in different ways. Before the advent of this virtual reality, printed words were the only vehicle to get reliable information. Owing to the proliferation of access to texts of many varieties online, reading itself is undergoing fundamental changes. Changes in reading, writing, thinking, approaching, buying e-books or printed books are only a few of the differences that the virtual reality has brought. Many specialists are arguing whether e-books are going to substitute for printed books forever. Although, they have different opinions and points of view, they all agree with the fact that technology has chenged reading and writing reality permanently.

According to Alberto Manguel (2010), different methods or devices modify, not only reading and writing, but also readers’ understanding. As a matter of fact, reading or writing on a laptop differ from reading and writing on paper. The use of a new technology involves not only a particular method, but also a new approach to it and a new conception of space and time. Manguel (2010) outlines “ Texts spoken or cut into a piece of clay, drawn on a sheet of paper or fingered on a phone screen, are not merely different incarnations of the same text, but creatures of different species.” In other words, the nature and value of these two methods differ from each other to the point of commensurate comparison, even though this difference might be hard to define.   According to Manguel (2010), e-books have positive and...