Reading Matters: A History for the Digital Age

Traces earlier revolutions in the history of reading to orient our shift to the digital ageConsidered one of the greatest inventions of human civilization, writing has served as a pathway to culture and education through history.The digital revolution has ushered in a dramatic transformation, leading to growing concern over the effects and possible detriments of algorithms, information overload, and fake news.In Reading Matters, Joel Halldorf makes the case that in order to navigate the upheavals of the digital age, we must understand prior technical revolutions and the transformations they engendered.He shows how our ways of reading are inseparable from the media we use, and that the decline of deep, attentive reading may be the most serious consequence of our move from page to screen. Originally published in Swedish in 2023, this newly revised volume presents a sweeping history of transformations in reading and writing, tracing precedents in the invention of writing, the shift from c