Reading Faster, Reflecting Less

Recently, my Facebook newsfeed, the contemporary equivalent of a town crier, has been abuzz about a new app that helps people read faster. Slate and The Jesuit Post have both produced articles on the topic. And, as with all things technological, it has many little boys and girls giggling with glee at the prospect of faster reading and more efficient comprehension. Take a deep breath, consider that, and read with me:

“Our civilization is first and foremost a civilization of means; in the reality of modern life, the means, it would seem, are more important than the ends.”

Jacques Ellul wrote that in his seminal work The Technological Society. A Frenchman, Christian anarchist, sociologist, and lay theologian, Ellul fought tooth and nail against what he saw as a society becoming increasingly obsessed with efficiency. And regardless of his politics or his non-conformist theology, I think he has a point. This new technology will bring good tidings: people with dyslexia may benefit and college students everywhere may be able to finish a textbook faster. The app supposedly even boosts comprehension. But concentrating on this aspect ignores the reflective end of reading. To see reading mostly (or entirely) in this light is to forget that human beings are people no computers; we do not exist primarily to receive and collate information.

Buzzwords like “efficiency” and “productivity” are gaining more and more traction. And, of course, some activities are primarily about those things. But many aren’t. Reading is a reflective act. Even subjects like history or political science, which might be seen as mostly factual or statistical involve more than the simple intake of information. To know a date and to understand its causes, consequences, and motivations are entirely different. The same goes for grasping a percentage. And while the most technical subjects such as math and the sciences may most generally benefit from this app, even they cannot totally avoid reflection.

And so, I’d encourage everyone out there to ask what it is they want from reading. Admittedly, reading isn’t always fun and this app will have its uses, but what happens when the means of efficiency ignores the ends of reflection? I’ll leave you with another Ellul quote:

“A principal characteristic of technique [technology] … is its refusal to tolerate moral judgments. It is absolutely independent of them and eliminates them from its domain. Technique never observes the distinction between moral and immoral use. It tends on the contrary, to create a completely independent technical morality.”