The book has always played an important role in the development of a person, in the formation of his character, determined his life values, his attitude to the world, his actions. Has it retained its functions today, is the influence of books on children, teenagers, and young people the same as in the 19th and 20th centuries? After all, today we live in the so-called information space...
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The fate of the book in the 21st century
“In order not to waste his life, a person must read his main books on time,” academician Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev wisely noted. And these are not just beautiful words: the book has really always played an important role in the development of a person, in the formation of his character, determined his life values, his attitude to the world, his actions.
How true are these words today? Is the influence of books on children, teenagers, and young people the same as in the 19th and 20th centuries? After all, today we live in the so-called information space. Can the Internet replace books?
Let's turn to the history of the book, to scientific research on this problem. Invention by J. Gutenberg in the 16th century printing press marked the beginning of a revolution in mass communication. Before the invention of printing, handwritten texts were available only to a small elite due to the illiteracy of the majority of the population and the high cost of handwritten books. And suddenly the market began to fill with books that were relatively cheap and more accessible to the masses. The following centuries were periods of increasing the number of texts produced. Polish bibliographer Iwinski calculated that from 1600 to 1900 the number of publications increased from 6,078 to 158,888.
In connection with the development of machine printing and the introduction modern forms capitalist entrepreneurship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, book production began to grow rapidly. The number of book titles published in the world testified to the pace and extent of replenishment of the information potential of society. The famous bibliologist Nemirovsky believes that the increase in the production of books is an objective law of the development of modern civilization. In the 20th century, the volume of book production in the world has been constantly increasing. Thus, in 1955, 269 thousand book titles were published, in 1970 - 521 thousand, in 1980 - 715 thousand, in 1990 - 842 thousand, in 1991 - 863 thousand titles. Not just books, but titles! Communications through the printing press have become widespread. Marshall McLuhan called this historical and cultural situation the “Gutenberg Galaxy.”
At the same time, the 20th century radically changed the situation and made the future of the book as a unique device of collective memory problematic. Today, the question of the future of the traditional printed book remains open. But still, optimistic assumptions are made that the book will live, since we are accustomed to understanding a book as not just a carrier of information. One of the most striking examples of an optimistic view of the future of the book is the judgment of the famous Italian semiologist and cultural theorist Umberto Eco, which he outlined in his popular lecture “From the Internet to Gutenberg: Text and Hypertext.” According to Eco, it is quite possible that CD-ROM will eventually replace the book, as well as other audio and video media. Eco suggests that, most likely, the disk will replace the reference book, but is unlikely to replace the reading book. The book will not die, the book will remain necessary, and not only fiction, but also all those books that require leisurely, thoughtful reading, that is, not just receiving information, but also thinking about it!
Today, scientists note the surprising fact that books are most actively published in those countries where the number of electronic databases is constantly growing and modern communication networks operate. That is, instead of replacing the book with electronic means of communication, there was an interpenetration of these two information directions within the framework of the global process of informatization. Of course, time makes its own adjustments to the fate of the book, but talking about the decline of the “Gutenberg Galaxy” is groundless. The book today, although it no longer remains the ruler of thoughts, still has a huge influence on the development of a person, the formation of his character.
The fact that this problem is relevant today and young people are involved in its solution is proven by the fact that on the Internet forum there is an active discussion of the questions “What place does a book occupy in your life?”, “What will be the fate of a book in the 21st century?”
Academic scientists Russian Academy Sciences have compiled a list of books that every child and teenager should read at a certain age. Why should I? Probably, we should again turn to Dmitry Sergeevich’s statement: “In order not to waste his life, a person must definitely read his main books on time.” Exactly, on time!
The same idea is heard in Vladimir Vysotsky’s poem “The Ballad of Struggle” (another name is “The Ballad of Bookish Children”).
If the path is cut by your father's sword,
You've wrapped salty tears around your mustache,
If in a hot battle you experienced what it costs,
This means you read the right books as a child.
The wonderful Russian poet Joseph Brodsky warned that the most terrible crime is NOT READING books. “A person pays for a crime with his whole life; if a nation commits a crime, it pays for it with its history.”
After the revolution, the Russian intelligentsia looked with horror at the “new” people who had not read a single book, whose faces were not illuminated by the great light of literature. In July 1922, Korney Chukovsky said in a letter to Y.N. Grebenshchikov: “Not a single human, thoughtful, subtle face, everything is clumsy and log-like to the extreme.” He was crushed, but suddenly “one quiet word spoke in him: a book... These lame-legged people still don’t know that they have Pushkin and Blok... Oh, how their gait will change, how their profiles will be ennobled, what new intonations will sound in their speech, if these people pass, for example, through Chekhov... After “War and Peace,” won’t a person’s very color of his eyes, the very structure of his lips change? Books regenerate the human body itself, change his blood, his appearance, and... in ten years... how many beautiful, dreamy, truly human faces you will see!”
Agree, we don’t want our faces, the faces of our contemporaries, to be “clumsy” and “logged.” It is better if they are “beautiful, dreamy, truly human.” As Maxim Gorky said, “... the purpose of literature is to help a person understand himself, to raise his faith in himself and develop in him the desire for truth, to fight vulgarity in people, to be able to find the good in them, to arouse shame, anger, and courage in their souls.” , to do everything so that people become noble and strong.”
So let's keep the book in our lives both in the 21st century and at all times.
Anastasia Lubenets
It can hardly be said that modern children do not read at all. But something else is obvious - the current younger generation does not love books as much as those who studied 30 or more years ago. What caused these changes? Is this related to innovative technologies and gadgets, with the advent of which we have crossed a certain time line, finding ourselves in a world without the love of reading, where our way of life has radically changed? Or is it all due to current parental education, and often, alas, its absence? And how does a modern secondary school cope with children’s indifference to classical literature?
“Children don’t like books, they don’t read at all now...” - you can hear from television programs, from parents, teachers and everyone who is concerned about the educational problem of our time. The image of a modern child is associated with a phone or tablet in his hands, but not with a book. And, if our parents in childhood, before going to bed, crawling under the blanket, took a flashlight with them and secretly read, then the current younger generation does almost the same thing, but with a slight difference: instead of a book under the blanket there is a tablet, and instead of reading - electronic games . Times have changed, it's the 21st century.
There is no education without upbringing
A teacher of Russian language and literature at Stavropol secondary school No. 19, Nelia Vasilievna Antonova, conducted a survey in the ninth grade on the subject of why children do not read.
One of the students said the following.
I started reading when I decided on my interests. As long as books were forced on me, I stubbornly rejected them. But as soon as I found a topic (history) that was interesting to me, I immediately really enjoyed reading it. I believe that my parents played a big role in this, who tried to teach me to read from early childhood. Mom and Dad read with me, discussed what they read, adding more and more books, among which I chose those that attracted me most. So I went into a frenzy. I have a lukewarm attitude towards many books, but I read with pleasure those that are interesting to me.
Another child's response was a frank admission that it is much easier and more interesting for children to watch a movie than to read a book.
It’s easier for us to watch a film where we don’t have to strain, where everything is in full view, and we don’t necessarily have to force ourselves to analyze and think. We understand that a book and a film are different things, but we are not accustomed to work and independently acquiring knowledge, so books for us are a kind of burden, a kind of school subject that we are required to know.
Anastasia Lubenets
As Nelia Vasilyevna said, during the conversation, all the students boiled down their conclusions to the fact that their parents were to blame for the lack of love for reading.
At first, my mom and dad read and discussed books with me, and then they let me go free, and as soon as I left control, I stopped reading,” another student shared.
The position of modern parents frightens educators and teachers. According to teachers, mothers and fathers now play the role of observers, they are breadwinners, they dress and put on shoes for children, but are not involved in their upbringing at all. And, if earlier, in Soviet times, parents also worked a lot, but at the same time found an opportunity to take care of their children, then for modern parents, the lack of time due to earning money is their cover and justification for the fact that they have no time to pay attention to the child. In their opinion, first of all, the school should educate, develop and impart knowledge.
School is school, but parents should be close to their child, says Nelia Vasilievna. “It is they who must instill a taste for reading from an early age, otherwise the teacher can do little.”
But here is the opinion of another teacher, teacher of Russian language and literature Svetlana Fedorovna Maslova.
Parents have completely withdrawn from raising their children. They, wittingly or unwittingly, develop unhealthy mercantile interests in children, which is why they develop a desire for acquisition rather than for spiritual food, that is, for reading. Today, already from kindergarten age, a child is involved in a kind of competition to see who has the coolest phone or tablet. And if they read Russian folk tales to children at a young age, and Pushkin, Turgenev, Chekhov in adolescence, then the level of education in the younger generation would be higher, the soul would be eager not for cool gadgets, but for improvement and achieving higher goals.
An example to follow
Anastasia Lubenets
Children stopped reading not yesterday. Today's non-reading child is a consequence of the fact that his parents were not instilled with a love of books at one time. Today's pupils and students are children of the generation of the 90s of the last century, when it was necessary to literally “survive”, so their parents were mainly busy making money. They had no time to deal with spiritual food. And a mother and father who don’t read will not be able to instill a love of reading.
Dad comes home from work and picks up not a book, but a tablet or sits down at the computer. Here the situation is of course ambiguous, since the options for activities on electronic device are very extensive, but one can only guess what dad is doing: reading a book, surfing the Internet or catching Pokemon. And what kind of personal example are we talking about here...
There is another example: young mothers with strollers, while walking in parks, sit on benches and enthusiastically “tinker” with mobile phones in front of their babies. It’s probably not worth repeating that our mothers 30-40 years ago had books in their hands instead of phones, and the previous generation, unlike the modern one, loved to read, endlessly expanding their horizons and raising their general educational level.
Book competitors in the 21st century
Let’s leave the question “why don’t children read” and figure out why they loved reading so much before. 30 or more years ago, there were no computers or the Internet in the Soviet family. People found answers to all their questions in books. Through reading they educated themselves, formed their natures, characters and attitude to life. That is why the book used to be so valuable and aroused boundless love for oneself.
But if earlier reading was one of the few leisure activities, now the choice of entertainment is huge: computer games, social networks, Cell phones, the Internet alone is worth it! It is not surprising that children have no interest in classics, both domestic and world.
It is now impossible to imagine a world without the Internet; from now on it is a kind of our way of life. In search of information, pupils and students, like everyone else, no longer have to run to the library when there is a gadget with Internet access at hand. But if any book combines selected and, importantly, proven material, then a significant part of the Internet is capable of drawing the reader into an information dump. Of course, on the vastness of the World Wide Web you can find a lot useful information without leaving home, but it needs to be checked a hundred times and what is called “filtered”. The trouble is that the Internet has given rise to many “couch” experts and thinkers who, without going out into the streets and having no real idea of what is happening in the world, try to impose their pseudoscientific opinions through social networks, websites and forums.
Anastasia Lubenets
Against the backdrop of all these innovations, reading as such has lost its popularity; reading is no longer fashionable. And what’s fashionable is that it’s fashionable to be on social networks, to have a cool phone or tablet, or better yet, both at the same time. And it will be very good if electronic library The gadget will include at least a few classic literary works.
Fantasy instead of classics
But it is not all that bad. And we cannot say that children and young people do not read at all. In any business, interest is important. And the modern generation is interested in works in the genre of fantastic literature - fantasy. We are talking about the famous series of books about Harry Potter by the writer J. K. Rowling, about “The Lord of the Rings” by John Tolkien and, of course, about the acclaimed epic “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R.R. Martin, as well as other stories based on the use of fairy-tale motifs. It is worth noting that films were made based on all of these works. And it’s far from a fact that the above-mentioned books were read, why, if you can limit yourself to watching films...
All these works are undoubtedly very interesting, fascinating and have earned their share of world popularity for a reason, but they are unlikely to be able to compete with classical literature in matters of education and the acquisition of wisdom.
The popular genre has both pros and cons. It perfectly develops the imagination, makes you strive to do good, but at the same time teaches you to fight, and, therefore, use force, develops in the minds of children the desire for power and superiority.
Unlike popular literature, classical literature teaches us to think about eternal questions, shapes personality in accordance with moral principles, develops the ability to sympathize and empathize, for example, Turgenev’s story “Mumu”. Classic literature makes you think: what does it mean to truly love? It forms true love for the Motherland. Gogol poses the question of true values to everyone, forcing the reader to make his choice. But, unfortunately, now the choice is not made in favor of the classics, which, in turn, is not the most in the best possible way affects the education of the younger generation.
All hope for school
Nowadays, teachers have to work hard to instill a love of reading in children. Nelia Vasilievna is trying to accomplish this task with the help of readers' diaries.
In these diaries, the children record descriptions of works that they read outside the school curriculum. Some perform this task because they are really interested in reading something new, others simply to avoid getting a bad grade, but if at least one of these reasons works, then there is already a chance to lure the child into the world of literature.
As teachers say, the modern school curriculum in literature is far from ideal; it is oversaturated with the number of authors, the time to master which is significantly reduced compared to the Soviet period. Teachers are tasked not so much with a detailed analysis of this or that work, but with familiarizing students with the names of the authors and the titles of their works. The number of hours allocated by the Ministry of Education for literature lessons in graduate classes is three academic hours per week, or 105 lessons per year. As part of their admission to the Unified State Exam, in early December, all students write an essay, the purpose of which is to determine the general speech culture of students, their ability to correctly formulate thoughts, justify their point of view and test the learned program.
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Time does not stand still, printed publications are replaced by electronic ones, but the great spiritual potential of Russian classical literature remains unchanged. The task of modern society is to use it fully for its spiritual and moral education. In V. Kondratiev’s story “Leave for Injury” there are wonderful words: “Russian literature has raised a person who finds it difficult to be a scoundrel.” This is what Russians should strive for from generation to generation.
And one more thing: it’s still interesting what our descendants will hold in their hands instead of modern tablets in 30 - 40 years... We’ll wait and see.
,The eternal truth that says that a person stops thinking when he stops reading, in my opinion, is relevant in our dynamic and turbulent 21st century.
Of course, this applies, first of all, to real classical literature, tested, if not for centuries, then at least for decades. And not the widely advertised “reading material”, which one cannot even call a book.
There is no doubt that the current age requires intellectually developed, literate people. Moreover, the knowledge and information they acquire should not be just a set of specific information. It needs to be comprehended and analyzed. I would like to turn again to a wise thought, drawn, by the way, from classical literature. It says that in order to become a literate person, you need to read only a few books. But to find them, you have to read hundreds of others.
Conclusion one: you need to read to be able to think.
Literature is a source of historical information presented to the reader in a lively and interesting way. Thanks to the writer's talent, the reader is literally immersed in the era described. There are everyday details, clothing, interior design, customs and traditions. A little imagination - and a person finds himself, for example, at a medieval knightly tournament together with the noble Ivanhoe W. Scott or at a nineteenth-century ball with heroes of the works of Russian classics. Of course, we can say that in modern films and computer games you can see it with your own eyes without straining too much. Feel the difference. Everything is served there beautifully, but in a ready-made form. The book makes a person’s imagination work, transporting him with the power of words to a specific era.
Conclusion two: you need to read in order to know more and develop imagination and imaginative thinking.
Literature is His Majesty the Word, aesthetic, multifaceted and beautiful. Unfortunately, in the 21st century verbal degradation is very noticeable. This, from my point of view, is directly related to reading, or rather, to the reluctance to read classical works. The language of the classics is rich, bright, full of images, and most importantly, it is true literary language that everyone should own cultured person. With constant reading, your vocabulary is enriched. Proverbs, sayings, catchphrases, and verbal images saturate speech, making it truly beautiful and rich.
Conclusion three: you need to read to enrich your oral and written speech.
The discussion not just about the benefits, but about the necessity of reading true literature in the present century can be continued. But even what is said proves: “Literature in the 21st century is necessary!”
- Why, when portraying Kutuzov in the novel War and Peace, does Tolstoy deliberately avoid glorifying the image of the commander? - -
- Why does the finale of the sixth chapter of the novel “Eugene Onegin” sound like the theme of the author’s farewell to youth, poetry and romanticism? - -
- What was Pontius Pilate's punishment? (based on the novel by M.A. Bulgakov “The Master and Margarita”) - -
- Is Natalia's character creative or destructive at its core? (based on the epic novel “Quiet Don” by M.A. Sholokhov) - -
- Why does Satin defend Luka in a dispute with the night shelters? (based on the play “At the Depths” by M. Gorky) - -
- Can we consider the hero of the story I.A. Is Bunin's "Mr. from San Francisco" a typical hero of the early 20th century? - -
This question always causes a storm of excitement among the public. The eternal debate never seems to end. Just recently, International Writer's Day took place. Our editors talked with the editor of the Eksmo publishing house, a teacher at the Faculty of Communication Management of the Russian State University of Civil Engineering, Lyubov Romanova. What is the fate of books? Why don't people understand Vadim Panov's books? What is more pleasant: a tablet or a book? You can find out the answers to these questions from our article. By the way, enjoy reading!
Railway carriage. Uniform, familiar hum. Dim yellow light. Stale air. Many people. They all clutched small shiny gadgets. They are called phones, tablets, computers, electronics... The person hanging over you sneezes and hastily wipes his nose free hand, his second is busy with an important task - typing SMS. His face is emotionless. If you look behind him, you will see other passengers, all of them unusually similar to each other. Distinctive features you won't notice. Their fingers mechanically scribble on the keyboard, sometimes a smile slips on their face, or a nervous laugh sounds, or a barely audible curse. Only all these are not reactions to real things. Few people are interested in the real anymore. But look a little to the left. In the farthest corner, on the farthest seat, sits a girl. Not that she was any different from the huge looming crowd. She did not behave defiantly and did not shout at the entire carriage. She just turned the pages. You wouldn’t hear their rustling, and you wouldn’t see their color. But she read.
Stop. But have you been to this very place in real life? Is this how things really are? Let's try to figure it out.
The world around us is filled with new technologies. By pressing one button, plunging into the Internet, we can find everything our heart desires. And this does not count the huge number of social networks and entertainment platforms. Where people say what they think and do what they want. It is extremely difficult for books to survive in such a world. After all, when reading, you have to spend a lot of your free time and strain your brain. Plus, reading books can turn into your new addiction. Maybe it's not worth it. But…
This gives us emotions that are stronger than what the Internet currently provides us with. After all, we ourselves do not control everything in the virtual world, which cannot be said about our own imagination.
+ This is an absolutely irreplaceable form of pleasure. And you will have to pick up the book to realize this.
The book develops not only your imagination, but also your intellect. The ability to competently express one’s thoughts, select synonyms for words, and maintain a conversation. It's all in the text. The more you read, the easier your life will be.
And what will the one who wrote his trilogy, the editor of the Eksmo publishing house, a teacher at the Faculty of Communication Management of the Russian State University of Social Sciences, say? Lyubov Romanova:
“Do you need to walk when there are cars? Should you drink tea when you have coffee? The same goes for books and the Internet. If there is such a need as “reading,” then you need to read. And if it’s not there, then it’s not there. Nobody has the right to force. Even teachers and teachers.
If you can replace books with a computer or TV, do so. But I, like many people who are no strangers to literature, believe that the pleasure of reading is unique. It's completely different. And it’s very different from just watching the series.”
Blue or red? In any case, you choose the tablet.
Speaking of progress and choice.
What does the future hold for literature?
Forecast of Lyubov Romanova:
« As someone who works in book publishing, I can say that the market is growing very actively. Today, the popularity of non-fiction literature is growing by about 40 percent per year. It was non-fiction that exploded in the 90s, when suddenly hungry people gained access to, albeit poorly translated, but diverse literature. Now reading is becoming fashionable. A trend has emerged - taking pictures of books and posting them on Instagram. Buy printed literature for this. A culture of pleasure in consuming books has emerged. Our publishing house recently released “Girl boss” by Sofia Amoruso. Having neither higher education, no money, no rich parents, she created the fastest growing retail business in the United States. And girls buy these books, take pictures of them against the background of pink foam in the bath, feathers, caramels, expensive
handbags on Instagram. Such is the visual culture of the book. And it certainly makes printed literature more and more popular. That is, books are successfully combined with photographing yourself, parts of your body, and photographing food.
It also seems to me that interest in serious literature, or that which pretends to be serious, will grow. It looks questionable in terms of quality, but is no less popular. Why? Because it's quite exciting. I think that in the future this trend will continue for books that are deliberately gloomy and tell about the horrors of modern reality. For example: “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tart, “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts.
Therefore, I think that the market will grow, as will the consumption of literature. But too powerful a pace can also lead to an anti-trend. At some point the hype will wear off. And only those who really read will remain.
But, nevertheless, just as theater did not disappear anywhere with the advent of cinema, books are also unlikely to disappear anywhere.”
Unless the books are destroyed, as in Ray Bradbury's famous novel Fahrenheit 451. A new question arises.
Question three. E-book or printed book?
Agree to keep in light in hands The sleek tablet is quite nice. It's not hard to wear either. It is multifunctional and modern. What can he contrast with the book?
The atmosphere. Smell. Tactile sensations. Sound. Easily turn the page.
Opinion of Lyubov Romanova: “From the point of view of not cluttering up your home, electronic. Free space on bookshelves limited. And from the point of view of completeness of sensations, adequate perception of the text, of course, paper. By the way, there is such a strange phenomenon, none of the psychologists are talking about it yet, but writers are actively talking about it. I remember the post by Vadim Panov (science fiction writer, author of the “Secret City” series). In which he talks about one of his meetings with his readers. Panov discovered that many did not understand his book at all. What they didn’t read somewhere, they overlooked. They didn’t understand how one fits into the other. And by the end of the meeting, Panov thought about this, because usually his books did not cause anything like this. And then it dawned on Panov: “How did you read? On paper? Or in electronic form? And almost everything was read electronically.
It turns out that when a person looks at an electronic text, he catches and understands less, reads superficially, without delving into the essence.
And if it is important for me to enjoy a book, if it is my favorite author, I will definitely buy it in paper form so as not to miss anything. Read everything from start to finish.”
Special offers from the editors with notes on why you should pick up this book so you don’t miss anything.
1. “Death is a lonely business” by R. Bradbury. (The first detective story of the famous science fiction writer and a very successful one. The main character will seem like a close person to you, even if his name is never mentioned in the text.)
2. “Invitation to Execution” by V. Nabokov. (Wonderful style. Lots of emotions. Heaviness.)
3. “Hello, sadness!” F. Sagan. (Very French and very easy. Sagan was only 19 years old when she published her novel.)
4. “Misery” S. King. (Hard. Shocking. Thrilling. So much so that the author received more than one award. Rob Reiner also made a film based on the work.)
We hope that now your hands are itchy, your palms are sweaty with impatience. And my feet carried me to the nearest bookstore.
Text: Ekaterina Savelyeva
