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On the Exceptionalism of Books in an Age of

Tweets
June 27th, 2020 · 5 comments (https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/06/27/on-the-exceptionalism-of-books-in-

an-age-of-tweets/#comments)

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Early in his 1994 essay collection, The Gutenberg Elegies
(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0865479577/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?
ie=UTF8&tag=stuhac-
20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0865479577&linkId=aaeb60e968d952d428ab
literary critic Sven Birkerts tells a story about his experience teaching an undergraduate
course on short stories. He started his students easy, with some Washington Irving, then
moved on to Hawthorne and Poe before arriving at Henry James.

It was here that his class “derailed.”

He tried to solicit opinions on the story he’d selected, but came up short. “My students could
barely muster the energy for a thumbs-up or -down,” he writes. “It was as though some
pneumatic pump had sucked out the last dregs of their spirits.”

As he probed, Birkerts realized the issue wasn’t localized; it wasn’t just the vocabulary, or
the diction, or the specific references. The root drove deeper:
/
 “They were not, with few exceptions, readers — never had been; that they had always
occupied themselves with music, TV, and videos; they had difficulty slowing down
enough to concentrate on prose of any density.”

As he reflected on this reality he came to realize that the implications were “staggering.”
This was not just a “generational disability,” but instead a “permanent turn” in the human
endeavor.

It’s easy to dismiss such sentiments as nostalgia: everything changes; it’s reactionary to
become too enthralled with any particular aging technology. But Birkerts convincingly
argues for a literary exceptionalism of sorts:

“For in fact, our entire collective subjective history — the soul of our societal body, is
encoded in print. Is encoded, and has for countless generations been passed along by
way of the word, mainly through books.”

As I elaborated in last week’s episode (https://www.buzzsprout.com/1121972) of my

podcast, Neil Postman argues
(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014303653X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?
ie=UTF8&tag=stuhac-
20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=014303653X&linkId=0b576f7a7dfe6bbbd6bc8
that it was the introduction of mass-produced longform writing that really unleashed
human potential — ushering in the modes of critical, analytical understanding that birthed
both the enlightenment and the scientific revolution, the foundations of modernity. It
allowed us to efficiently capture complex thought in all its nuance, then build on it, layer
after layer, nudging forward human intellectual endeavor.

Writing was not just another technology, in other words, but the cognitive lodestone that
attracted all advances that followed.

Which is why Birkerts was troubled in the early 1990s to see an emergent electronic culture
destabilize this medium.

It’s also why in 1985, Neil Postman described a similar ominous premonition as he surveyed
the impact of television
(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014303653X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?
/
ie=UTF8&tag=stuhac-
20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=014303653X&linkId=48a7adb4950c26be01bb

And it’s why today, as I see more of our political and philosophical discourse mediated
through Tweets, I despair, but as I also see the emergence of longform audio and the
resurgence of audio books, I feel hope.

As I elaborated in my podcast, (https://www.buzzsprout.com/1121972) the medium through

which you mediate the world matters. An app on your phone can offer you diversion or
fleeting catharsis. On the other hand, something more lexicographically substantial  —
though perhaps, as Birkert’s students discovered, more difficult to consume — can often
offer true progress.

5 thoughts on “On the Exceptionalism of Books in an Age of Tweets”

1. DEV says:
JUNE 27, 2020 AT 4:00 AM (HTTPS://WWW.CALNEWPORT.COM/BLOG/2020/06/27/ON-THE-
EXCEPTIONALISM-OF-BOOKS-IN-AN-AGE-OF-TWEETS/#COMMENT-430354)

Great observation. “The Shallows” goes into the history of the invention of media, especially the
written word, and its evolution into modern forms. There’s a great quote in there about Henry
James being too difficult for iGen to understand–maybe not too difficult, but demanding patience
that they could no longer give.

On a related note, I’d like to ask you what are some high-quality analog media you engage in
your own life, or something in addition to reading books, socializing, and playing guitar that
you’ve discovered lately. I think there are ways to reconnect computers to a deeper way of life,
whether it’s for learning skills like programming or language learning, facilitating games with
voice or video chat during COVID-19, or reading blog posts and other longform that have been
undercut by tweets and Facebook posts.

As a person in my late twenties, I always worry that (over)use of technology has in some way
affected the development and maturation of my prefrontal cortex and other parts of the brain that
are essential for, ironically, being able to handle multitasking in a very complex technological
world. We definitely need to know more about the dangers of these new media to developing
brains, as well as give people compelling alternatives.

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1. STUDY HACKS (HTTPS://WWW.CALNEWPORT.COM) says:

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 JUNE 27, 2020 AT 11:41 AM (HTTPS://WWW.CALNEWPORT.COM/BLOG/2020/06/27/ON-THE-
EXCEPTIONALISM-OF-BOOKS-IN-AN-AGE-OF-TWEETS/#COMMENT-430381)

Carr’s book is great as well (was a finalist for the Pulitizer). I think he was
drawing from (or inspired by) Birkert’s earlier book when he gave his James example.

In terms of good analog activity suggestions, one thing I’ve noticed is that anything that
requires the development of skill or connoisseurship is good for the brain. It could be
intellectual skill (like slowly trying to master a certain literature or philosophy); or a physical
skill (bread baking, gardening, tested.com-style making), or the development of taste (I
spent some time back before I had a lot of kids really learning to understand/appreciate
beer).

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2. Z says:
JUNE 27, 2020 AT 4:26 AM (HTTPS://WWW.CALNEWPORT.COM/BLOG/2020/06/27/ON-THE-
EXCEPTIONALISM-OF-BOOKS-IN-AN-AGE-OF-TWEETS/#COMMENT-430356)

Funny how Mr Postman’s book always seems to follow me through life. My first encounter with
Amusing Ourselves to Death was my senior year of college, it was required reading for Dr
Johnson’s capstone course. Every morning, he requested a student go get the New York Times. We
would then spend a good portion of our class reading the op-Ed. He too saw that my generation
was losing its intimacy with reading. What a profound effect that book and Dr Johnson had on me.
There after, I deleted my Facebook and all social media in 2014. Thanks to Mr Postman, I saw that
my generations medium ‘the message ‘ was social media. And I think in a way you are the next big
advocate of living a fulfilling life, thank you for a wonderful post, Dr Newport. Your work continues
to shape my life.

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3. KIAN says:
JUNE 27, 2020 AT 8:35 AM (HTTPS://WWW.CALNEWPORT.COM/BLOG/2020/06/27/ON-THE-
EXCEPTIONALISM-OF-BOOKS-IN-AN-AGE-OF-TWEETS/#COMMENT-430368)

As a millennial i see my generation is burning under the fire of ambition of Tech industry, which is
not so deliberate,maybe. The power of focus is becoming more and more scarce and being
disconnected and offline is becoming near impossible and even a luxury.
Great post.

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4. KRISTI WILLIAMS says:
JUNE 27, 2020 AT 10:57 AM (HTTPS://WWW.CALNEWPORT.COM/BLOG/2020/06/27/ON-THE-
EXCEPTIONALISM-OF-BOOKS-IN-AN-AGE-OF-TWEETS/#COMMENT-430380)

This is a great assessment! I am in my mid 40s and began a life-long love affair with reading
when I was in kindergarten. I was hoping my oldest son, who is now 22, would also be a reading
enthusiast. Not! Maybe the littlest one will join me hahaha. Seriously, I believe, what you’ve
observed is why so many who don’t choose to challenge and invigorate their minds regularly with
reading material of substance and complexity, experience lackluster creativity and seemingly
non-existent imaginative faculties. I was reviewing the comments of a YouTube channel I enjoy
where the creator recites books of various 20th century metaphysical authors. Interestingly,
another follower made a statement that his introductions were too long and to get to it. This was a
one hour reading, which is the creator’s minimum length of uploads. I challenged that commenter
to look within and question why they were wanting the creator to “hurry up”. Beautifully, that
follower did see the error in not allowing himself to get prepped, including receiving some
background details for the reading and merely wanting something that’s the equivalent of an
exquisite meal made-to-order to a mediocre fast food combo slung out of a drive thru window!

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About Cal Newport

I'm a computer science professor (https://people.cs.georgetown.edu/~cnewport/) who writes about the

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