Social media can never replace books
JEDDAH. KAZINFORM The Riyadh book fair is opening its doors to visitors these days. And along the piles of books, news publications and crowds of visitors, social media too goes ablaze during the event.
Tweets and photos about the bought books, discussions about the most famous releases, and talks about the most famous banned releases usually take place.
Books, those numbered printed pages with endless rows of books, can be considered the saviors of languages, Arab News reports. They were the medium in which all our history and advancements have been carried and protected through time. Now in the days of 140 characters tweets, news feeds and likes, endless photos and comments, one wonders if social media is affecting languages, books and readings habits in any way. Embarking on a journey to find answers to such question is, unfortunately, restricted by a sad fact; reading in the Arab world is not that popular to begin with. According to many studies, an Arabic reader reads about six pages a year! It's truly a shameful rate in comparison, for example, to an American reader who reads about six books a year. Nevertheless, Arabs, including Saudis, seem to be spending a lot of time attached to the screens of their smart phones and tablets, reading tweets and Facebook updates. They consume a lot of mental energy following up these readings, sharing, and interacting with them. Given that using social media would require a basic literacy skill, that is the ability to read, a lot of scholars are arguing that the use of online platform is actually harming our readings habits and our ability to comprehend and analyze. Consuming times on social media does not usually add value to our knowledge, or to our analytical skills compared to reading books. The fast pace required to keep up with tweets or news feeds actually shorten our focus span and ability to analyze and comprehend. In addition, our language skills are also put to test. Abbreviations, incomplete sentences, broken grammar are all permitted in order to meet and keep up with the short time span allow us to share and interact with others on social media. We even invented a special language to use on social media; LOL and selfie are only small examples. So, here is the conclusion: Social media should never be considered as a replacement to books and serious knowledge seeking. They can be used to sharing books and starting discussions about them, but they can never replace reading the printed pages or discussing them with friends face to face.