Reading: Books vs Blogs

I remembered the other day a quote from property tycoon Sir Bob Jones, and it’s something that’s been ringing through my mind for the last few days. I can’t remember it word for word but it was something to the effect of ‘I’m not so much interested in what degrees you have but more what you have read’.

This got me thinking about reading and the way it has evolved with technology. Before the world we live in of  computers, websites, blogs and e-readers people read books. If you needed to know how a volcano worked you pulled out the “v” edition of your encyclopedia and sat down for a serious reading session. That was the only option you had for in home media consumption, your only other real option was finding someone who knew about it and could teach you. TV at that stage was just the news and a collection of awesome soap operas and sit-coms (the 70′s really did spawn some good stuff).

So how has the evolution of technology changed the way we learn? Now days if you want to know something you just google it (I love that fact that the general term for searching on the internet has become known as “googling”, but that’s off topic). So you go to google, search your desired topic and usually you will be presented with wikipedia articles, howstuffworks articles and youtube videos on the topic. Not to mention blogs, websites and forums which exist to help create opinions and provide platforms people people to discuss and debate these topics.

But what does this mean for Sir Bob’s question of what have you read? Personally I’m not the best when it comes to reading books. In the last year I’ve read about 8 books. I just have trouble making myself stop and sit down to read a book. But in a normal day I might read 10+ Wikipedia articles, 2+ HowStuffWorks aricles, atleast 10 blogs, 5+news sites and watch a handful of documentaries on youtube. If asked by Bob Jones “What books have you read?” I would have to sheepishly reply with “not many”.

I’m not overly sure where I am going with this but it is interesting to look at how the consumption of the written word, and learning in general has evolved with technology. I am working on reading actual books more at the moment, but I think the problem I have is I often associate books with fiction and fiction just does not interest me. I’m all about brass tacks.

What do people prefer? The real deal or digital?