Lately, I have been thinking about working people and reading books! From the perspective of a student, it is so normal to read books, do your assignments and go to the library, but does the same apply for us professionals too? I know that we don’t have to do assignments the same way student do, but we do have our own work which is nothing less than a student assignment if not worse. So why do I and for that matter a lot of people (of course people I know like friends and coworkers) complain about not getting time to read books?
A lot of sociologists say that reading books is the most important way in which our brains process and retrieve new information. Doing a bit of research on the internet I found that “The great advantage of reading is that there is much more material written in all forms than that on tape and video that one would listen to, and the perception of the ear to respond to critical information is not as effective as that to the eye.”
Knowing myself as an IT professional and a lots of other professionals in all walks of life, it has become much more apparent to me that the computer has taken the place of a lots of things in life – playing games, making social contacts, writing a diary (i am doing the same thing), reading news, shopping and just about anything else.
Another important aspect which comes to my mind, particularly with respect to my IT profession, is reading online. I remember that as part of one of my IT certification exams, as I was preparing to purchase a good old book, one of my friends gave me an e-book which after reading I understood that it had just about everything I needed to know (needless to say I completed the certification successfully).
Whenever I need to get myself updated to any new technology, I don’t need to purchase a book – just google and get it!
I wonder whether just like fashions, will book reading come back and become vogue again?
