America, why are your libraries full of tears?

Question

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Question context:
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The question is a quote from a poem titled 'America' by Allen Ginsberg.
Has tv and the Internet decreased our capacity to read books or do books still play an important role in your life?
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by AndrewE from http://www.writerspace.net

Answer 1

Allen Ginsberg was not a happy man.

I think TV, if not the Internet, has definitely reduced literacy. I'm old enough, and have not had a television for long enough that I still love to read. In fact, I am a bookaholic; a compulsive over-reader. (That's an inside joke; sorry.)

But I do have one piece of optimism, or halfway: J. K. Rowling has persuaded a generation of kids to take up reading and like it. Unfortunately, once the Harry Potter movies started being released, I'm afraid kids who had not yet read the books felt they didn't need to, they could just get the story from the movies.

It is also true that American public schools have made reading a drag and a chore, and I blame the teacher's union more than anything for this. Because teaching literacy -- not just slogging your way through a paragraph, but really understanding what is read -- is a difficult and time-consuming job, especially for children who do not live with books, and because it is something that happens from the heart as much as from a lesson plan, many children just never get turned on to reading. As adults, they don't read any more than they need to. And they have no concept of how to choose a worthwhile book to read. It's very, very sad, and one of the reasons why I almost always use Borders gift cards when I need a gift for birthday or holiday. I believe in the power of books!

You may have helped motivate me to take another stab at my writing projects; thank you.

Answer 2

The number of readers may decrease, but as long as humans question anything, there will be a place for books. The experience of reading a book is much different from the experience of reading off of a monitor or screen.

Answer 3

Amazon.com is one of the largest moneymakers in cyberspace. Home library spaces are on the rise in new home construction. I give 10 points to the books.

Answer 4

First, I'm deciphering "tears" as "angst". And the rationale for that? Because it seems that there may be not anything mainstream preteen readers like larger than a e-book so stuffed with angst and melancholy that the e-book itself can be crying ("tears" and as in "crying tears" now!), and the reader feels so depressed from the tale that the rip the e-book open ("tears" as in "ripped tears") and run away crying. *deep breaths* That's my rant of the day. The ethical of the tale? I hate freaking teenager angst reports.

Answer 5

I read books often and thankfully none of them have anything in them written by Allen Ginsberg

Answer 6

Umm...right now Yahoo! answers is keeping me from reading the books I am currently reading, Leviathan, Plato's Republic, and The Radical Center, but normally, no.

Answer 7

TV's defi. a problem when it's about intellectual standard. it's a dumb and passive phenomena and i do think americans should read more books instead of watching tv.

Answer 8

Libraries will make a big come back,as soon as we run out of electricity!

Answer 9

No, people never read books anyway.

Now we can simply pretend we used to read books "oh hell I used to read, but now I use the internet". oh sure.

Answer 10

Is that tears as in crying or tears as in damaged books?