We have a crisis on our hands. You mean global warming? The world economy? No, the decline of reading. People are just not doing it anymore, especially the young. Who’s responsible?

　　Actually, it’s more like, what is responsible? The Internet, of course, and everything that comes with it – Facebook, Twitter (微博). You can write your own list.

　　There’s been a warning about the imminent death of literate civilization for a long time. In the 20th century, fi rst it was the movies, then radio, then television that seemed to spell doom for the written world. None did. Reading survived; in fact it not only survived, it has fl ourished. The world is more literate than ever before – there are more and more readers, and more and more books.

　　The fact that we often get our reading material online today is not something we should worry over. The electronic and digital revolution of the last two decades has arguably shown the way forward for reading and for writing. Take the arrival of e-book readers as an example.

　　Devices like Kindle make reading more convenient and are a lot more environmentally friendly than the traditional paper book.

　　As technology makes new ways of writing possible, new ways of reading are possible. Interconnectivity allows for the possibility of a reading experience that was barely imaginable before. Where traditional books had to make do with photographs and illustrations, an e-book can provide readers with an unlimited number of links: to texts, pictures, and videos. In the future, the way people write novels, history, and philosophy will resemble nothing seen in the past.

　　On the other hand, there is the danger of trivialization. One Twitter group is offering its followers single-sentence-long “digests” of the great novels. War and Peace in a sentence? You must be joking. We should fear the fragmentation of reading. There is the danger that the highspeed connectivity of the Internet will reduce our attention span—that we will be incapable of reading anything of length or which requires deep concentration.

　　In such a fast-changing world, in which reality seems to be remade each day, we need the ability to focus and understand what is happening to us. This has always been the function of literature and we should be careful not to let it disappear. Our society needs to be able to imagine the possibility of someone utterly in tune with modern technology but able to make sense of a dynamic, confusing world.

　　In the 15th century, Johannes Guttenberg’s invention of the printing press in Europe had a huge impact on civilization. Once upon a time the physical book was a challenging thing. We should remember this before we assume that technology is out to destroy traditional culture.

　 热点推荐：

　　公共英语等级考试PETS1-PETS5模拟试题汇总（680套）

　　备考有问题？加入公共英语考试群535346739 有专业的老师提供备考指导，助你通关拿证，还可以和考友一起交流！

　　取证热点：：2020年公共英语不用盲目备考，网校教研团队精心打造高通关套餐班，密训锁分，保障快捷通关!2020年公共英语锁分套餐班强势推出，精锐老师分题型专项辅导，听说读写稳步质变>>课程试听！