Original title: How should we read in the era of intelligent media
With the rapid development of science and technology, in the Internet age, smart phones have become an indispensable tool for people to live, work and study. As a novel way of disseminating information, short videos are sought after by people.
The “2023 China Internet Audio-Visual Development Research Report” released by the China Internet Audio-Visual Program Service Association shows that as of the end of last year, the number of online audio-visual users in my country was 1.040 billion, of which the number of short video users reached 1.012 billion.
Smart media terminals, while providing people with possible information services anytime and anywhere, also make people’s reading mobility and fragmentation trend more and more obvious. Then, in the era of smart media, we have to face the following questions: Can watching short videos provide us with enough information, a new perspective and all knowledge, and can it replace the traditional way of reading for knowledge? At present, how should we rationally understand the relationship between short videos and life in the information age? In the current era where short videos are in the ascendant, how should we continue reading?
In the era of smart media, short videos have unconsciously changed the way people think and read. Nowadays, some short reading videos are popular, which can convert literary works into video form and present them to users in a vivid and intuitive way, so that users can read literary works in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere. For the younger generation of readers, video content is more able to attract their attention and make it easier for them to accept and understand literary works.
So can we conclude that books, a long and inefficient knowledge carrier, will withdraw from the stage of history sooner or later, and will eventually be replaced by short videos or newer smart technologies? For now, that’s not the case. The convenience, interactivity, and personalization of smart media have brought innovations to people’s reading methods, but at the same time, national reading is facing the challenges of “information cocoon room”, “algorithmic bias” and “echo chamber effect”. There are different opinions on this.
Some people think that short videos are flexible in form, interesting, and highly popular, which saves lengthy reading time and can efficiently meet users’ cognitive needs. Therefore, they flock to short videos for reading and become “loyal fans”; Don’t solidify reading into a certain form of media”, gladly accept the changes of short videos to reading, emphasizing that “live video is also a kind of reading”. Some critics believe that short videos are a means of tempered by capital and try to lure us into indulging in consumption. Short videos for reading are actually “entertainment” in the name of “reading”, which is not considered reading; some critics directly refer to Short videos are classified as “spiritual opiates”. They believe that long-term viewing of short videos will deprive people of attention and patience, and are addictive. They are worried that “it will gradually change our brains” and cause people’s reading ability to decline. It can be seen that while short videos change people’s reading methods, improve reading experience, and improve reading efficiency, they also imply certain risks and challenges.
The word “reading” can be disassembled into two key actions of “reading-browsing” and “reading-recognition”. “Reading” is the use of language to obtain information, understand the world, develop thinking, and gain aesthetic experience and knowledge. The essence of “reading” is to acquire knowledge from “visual materials”. In the era of intelligent media, various types of media can disseminate various information and information more effectively, and the double-edged sword of the media lies in that it promotes the dissemination of information on the one hand, and wraps the information on the other hand, wearing different clothes. Style “clothes”. For example, for the same “The Wandering Earth”, people who read books look at its world view, storyline and literary talent, people who watch movies look at its visual effects and actors, and those who watch the short video “Wandering Earth” in 3 minutes can only read it. Know roughly its introduction and ending. The three different media bring three completely different effects, and the depth and value of them are naturally different.
Today, we are in an era of extremely rich information and a sea of books. In the process of different value conflicts, collisions and games, we must strengthen cultural identity and build value consensus. We must be careful and discerning. Reading is a highly autonomous learning experience, and the ideological, literary, and philosophical achievements of a book cannot be captured in just a few minutes of video, and the threshold for making short videos is low, so in The content is mixed, and the video creators themselves may not be able to read and understand the knowledge content accurately.
Reading means that the reader has to develop a train of thought on his own, which requires the reader to have quite strong classification, reasoning and judgment abilities. No matter what kind of medium is used for reading, the key to reading is to maintain calm and independent thinking, to maintain the discrimination of media, to maintain the screening of information, and to maintain the complementarity of information between different media. Only by combining the passive acceptance of watching short videos, the active absorption of reading a good book offline, and the thinking and perception after reading, can readers have the opportunity to have a “soul dialogue” with the author and have the opportunity to experience The reading state of “Blow out the reading lamp, and the whole body is full of moon”.
As an important symbol to measure the degree of national civilization, reading for all has attracted much attention. Reading booms have been set off in various places, and the reading enthusiasm of the whole people has been conveyed through rich reading activities. In the era of smart media, relevant departments should use smart media to vigorously promote multi-modal reading for the whole people, improve people’s cultural literacy, and respond to the transformation of reading methods brought about by technological development with a positive attitude, avoiding “algorithmic bias” and “echo chambers” effect”; readers should strive to improve their cultural knowledge and ability to “discern” and avoid passively accepting “recommendations” indiscriminately in the flow of multiple information. Self-discovery, self-accumulation and self-growth. (Li Mengyao）