Academic Roundtable: Print or Digital? College Students, Reading, & Academic Libraries

Naomi Baron, a linguist from American University and an expert on language and technology, will talk with us about how technology is reshaping our understanding of what it means to read. While reading onscreen has many virtues, including convenience, potential cost-savings, and the opportunity to bring free access to books to people around the world, she argues that the virtues of eReading are matched with drawbacks. Users are easily distracted by other temptations on their devices, multitasking is rampant, and screens coax us to skim rather than read in-depth. Drawing upon her research, Baron will bring the conversation about “the fate of reading in a digital world” to the realm of college students, teaching, and academic libraries.