Modern Reading

Modern reading, especially of the academic and professional type, is an activity performed by commuters or tourists; it is no longer that of pedestrians and pilgrims. The speed of the car and the dullness of the road and the distraction of billboards put the driver into a state of sensory deprivation that continues when he hurries through manuals and journals once he arrives at his desk. Like the tourist equipped with a camera, so today's student reaches for the photocopy to keep a souvenir snapshot. He is in a world of photographs, illustrations, and graphs which put the memory of illuminated letter-landscapes beyond his reach.


Ivan Illich, In the Vineyard of the Text, 1993