A2: Bookishness

Writing on his There Is No Gap blog, Karl Pohrt reports on a symposium titled “Bookishness: The New Fate of Reading in the Digital Age,” held last month at UM: “Tom Fitzgerald, who writes on social policy, talks about the closing of our local newspaper and asks Liu [one of the symposium's speakers] if he thinks the loss of newspapers is a problem in a democratic society that depends on an informed electorate. Liu says he’s heard that argument before and doesn’t think it’s true. ‘When I go into Starbucks I see people all around me reading the news on their laptops,’ he says. I ask him about people who don’t have laptops or access to Starbucks. He tells me he doesn’t think this is a problem because computers have come down in price to around $400. I think about inviting him to visit Flint, my hometown, where about a third of the population now lives in poverty. We could take a poll or do a visual census of computer use among folks in downtown Flint coffee shops. But I hold my tongue.” [Source]