School librarian Thomas Washington’s essay in the Christian Science Monitor strikes a chord: “We suspect that the tipping point in information overload has tipped. Students’ aversion to reading does not necessarily signal a weakness, much less a dislike of reading. For them, and now maybe for us, moving on to something else is an adaptive tactic for negotiating the jungle that is our information-besotted culture of verbiage.”

We suspect that the tipping point in information overload has tipped. Students’ aversion to reading does not necessarily signal a weakness, much less a dislike of reading. For them, and now maybe for us, moving on to something else is an adaptive tactic for negotiating the jungle that is our information-besotted culture of verbiage.

And this: “The pursuit of knowledge in the age of information overload is less about a process of acquisition than about proficiency in tossing stuff out. By necessity, we spend more time quickly scanning manuals, king-size novels, the blogosphere, and poems in The New Yorker than we do scrutinizing their contents for deeper meaning.”

The pursuit of knowledge in the age of information overload is less about a process of acquisition than about proficiency in tossing stuff out. By necessity, we spend more time quickly scanning manuals, king-size novels, the blogosphere, and poems in The New Yorker than we do scrutinizing their contents for deeper meaning.

Yesterday we did a couple of RSS sessions in Elluminate for the PLP cohorts and we found ourselves talking more about what we don’t read than what we do read. We’re guessing that we scan through about 80% of what comes into our Google Reader, actually read a few full paragraphs and note or tag or move another 15%, and do a “deep” read (and perhaps write, as in this case) of the remainder.

We’re feeling guilty about much of this, though Washington is nice enough to let us off the hook. But we still wonder how much of this is just angst about the shifts, the transition to a different reading space that might be as wonderful and valuable as the old one, just different. (We will admit, however, that the fact that our kids are currently engrossed and engaged in 400-page fantasy novels makes our hearts soar and even leaves us a tad jealous.)

What we like about this essay (aside from that it’s relatively short) is that it nails the friction of our collective educator unease about the direction this is taking.

Reading is all about testing these days. As the NEA reports, it is also about some prospective employer who ranks reading comprehension as “very important.” Students know this. It’s part of the reason they’re in SAT preparation overdrive in their freshman year. Living in the era of information overload forces a few key questions on all readers. What do we need to know? Why do we need to know it? And, given that by the end of our lives we will have absorbed and converted to knowledge only a sliver of the information available, should we bother knowing it?

Reading is all about testing these days. As the NEA reports, it is also about some prospective employer who ranks reading comprehension as “very important.” Students know this. It’s part of the reason they’re in SAT preparation overdrive in their freshman year. Living in the era of information overload forces a few key questions on all readers. What do we need to know? Why do we need to know it? And, given that by the end of our lives we will have absorbed and converted to knowledge only a sliver of the information available, should we bother knowing it?

So, assuming you’ve read this, what do you think?