When technophiles feel challenged, they often brandish the example of Socrates's wary attitude toward a new technology that would change the destiny of humanity: writing. Socrates believed that the transmission of knowledge should be oral, that codifying our thoughts in writing would weaken our memory and intellectual abilities. Instead, his disciple, Plato, used this technology to bequeath us his thoughts, and also those of his teacher. Well, now we find ourselves at the exact opposite of that moment of technological transition.
Digital video and audio have facilitated a return to oral communication as the primary means of transmitting information. Humans no longer need writing and reading to maintain conversations with each other across time and space. Everything leads us to believe that we no longer need the written word to continue the cognitive and cultural evolution of our species. This paradigm shift has become even more evident with the coincidence of contrasting events that have recently occurred: at one extreme, we have criticism of the book cult, the state of literary studies, and the lack of visibility of literature in the media; while at the other, we have the proliferation of book clubs, the success of writing courses, and reading parties (parties for individual reading, without technological interruptions).
The phenomenon of the silent reading parties It's the symptom of an endemic malady: difficulty concentrating. The tendency toward dispersion that characterizes contemporary society has accelerated considerably in recent years. After all, the fact that people choose to surround themselves with strangers in order to devote themselves to reading only demonstrates the social need to reclaim spaces and states of concentration. On the other hand, these festivals are nothing more than a folklorization of an activity that seems destined to be sidelined. If it's necessary to gather to read, it's because reading on paper is becoming a difficult task to carry out. However, there's always someone who knows how to capitalize on social responses to the inertia of progress: admission to the most popular reading festivals in New York requires admission, and they're so popular that there's always a waiting list. That said, these festivals are welcome, even if the goal is to flirt (reading can also be sexy, and a reading festival is more effective than Tinder).
The audiovisual technological transition is occurring at a dizzying speed compared to the adoption of print and is entailing drastic structural changes. The days when literature and periodical publications were a mere straw, a reflection of society's imaginative and reflective vitality, are beginning to fade. For now, literary studies and reading on paper are in crisis, here and everywhere: College students struggle to read, the degrees in which literature is studied are increasingly minority or, in the worst case scenario, disappear from universitiesBut the world of fiction continues to grow. Never before have there been so many audiovisual series produced, never before have people devoted so much time to fiction, never before have large companies invested so much effort in constructing compelling narratives. It's quite ironic: stories have structured, structure, and will continue to structure our societies, but we will have fewer and fewer people with sufficient tools to analyze them in depth, to conduct archaeology of the ideas they contain, to point out their origins, their deviations, and their pitfalls.
Starting from the undeniable predominance of audiovisual over paper and digital ink, Pep Valsalobre wrote an article this summer in which he wondered if we are waiting for an agraphic horizonWhy read books when we can watch a series with scripts that can also be brilliant? Why should we delve into a dense essay when we can watch a dynamic video essay or listen to a podcast or audio documentary while we work from home or exercise? First, there are the reasons why people seek refuge in a silent reading feast. We are saturated, overwhelmed, both cognitively and sensorially: we are on the threshold of digital dementia. According to paleobiologists, we are not prepared for the technological society of the 21st century, given that we have more or less the same biological characteristics as when we lived in caves. No matter how much we absorb it, our bodies cannot assimilate the avalanche of discursive and sensorial information to which we are subjected. Because while fiction on paper can be counted in kilobits and depends on the imagination to (re)create the physical universe, audiovisual media must be counted in gigabits and involves an overload of digital stimuli, which we don't digest as well as analog ones. Thus, our cultural diet must also include a good portion of analogue: it cannot be exclusively digital.
But there's another compelling reason. The written word is an anchor, a landmark in the midst of mental wandering: verba volante, scripta manentWe need to physically map our thoughts. Inevitably, our complex creations must be preceded by a map, by a thorough review of a written script. Writing and reading have lost prominence, yes, but they will eventually adapt to new social dynamics (like radio, which no longer relies solely on live broadcasts) and will regain some of the lost ground (as the tram or train is doing). They will do so because we need the slow, human-made pace of reading and writing to learn to think properly, to develop ourselves intellectually, and to maintain our health. Agreed: perhaps it's not necessary for everyone to read regularly as an adult, but the written word is key to a formative process. To grow, to continue growing, we need the pause and concentration that reading requires. Writing, forgive us Socrates, has always been a revolutionary tool.
