A bookstore posted a meme on his social media page. A cute cartoon of a book performing CPR on a young person. Out of the young person’s mouth were spewing the poisons of social media icons.
Reading is one of the deepest joys in life, as far as I’m concerned. And, books transform hearts and save lives for sure.
I probably read 75 or 100 books a year. Many in my professional field, but probably an equal or even greater number of fiction works. And I have probably learned as much about life and reality, and figuring out who I am, from reading fiction as I have from reading non-fiction! I love and value books.
That said, I am not cool with demonizing cell phones, social media, etc.
And, the corollary to that, we older people need to stop disparaging the younger generations for their use of cell phones and social media. People seek truth and connection, and they will find it where it’s available. Our society doesn’t always make those things very available. And there have been many centralized gatekeeper institutions running things for too long.
Telecommunications technology has probably done more for various social movements than anything we could have imagined.
Of course there is always going to be misinformation out there, and there will always be people with evil intentions out there, but it comes in all forms and channels, both in written books and on social media and on TV and in the movies – and in person to person communication as well. We will always have the task of sorting through huge volume of words and chatter and the noise of daily life to find the kernels of our truth.