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In Theories of the Text (Greetham 1999), D. C. Greetham begins by observing that the word “text” derives from the Latin texere, which means “to weave, join together, plait, braid” and therefore “to construct, fabricate, build, or compose.” “Text,” he goes on to say, “is thus both literal and concrete on the one hand – the physical woven text – and figurative and conceptual on the other: a work of art and both the technical and imaginative procedures whereby this work is brought forth.” (26) Text understood in this way covers a range of phenomena, from the most concrete and material aspects of expression to the most abstract and ideal aspects of content and meaning.

Carr originally came to prominence with the 2003 Harvard Business Review article "IT Doesn't Matter" and the 2004 book Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business School Press). In these widely discussed works, he argued that the strategic importance of information technology in business has diminished as IT has become more commonplace, standardized and cheaper.

In 2005, Carr published the controversial [4] article "The End of Corporate Computing" in the MIT Sloan Management Review, in which he argued that in the future companies will purchase information technology as a utility service from outside suppliers.

Through his blog "Rough Type," Carr has been a critic of technological utopianism and in particular the populist claims made for online social production. In his 2005 blog essay titled "The Amorality of Web 2.0," he criticized the quality of volunteer Web 2.0 information projects such as Wikipedia and the blogosphere and argued that they may have a net negative effect on society by displacing more expensive professional alternatives.

« Ce qui importe ce n’est pas de lire, mais de relire » J-L Borgès

Comme l’a bien montré Alexandre Serres[1], cette logique adaptative, à fondement comportementaliste et à visée principalement économique, est manifeste dans un grand nombre de textes internationaux, notamment politiques, qui posent la nécessité d’enseigner cette « maîtrise » ou « culture de l’information » (Information Literacy) aux jeunes générations. Ainsi par exemple, en France, la « Loi d’orientation et de programme pour l’avenir de l’école » de 2005 intègre désormais au « socle commun » de connaissances et de compétences la « maîtrise des techniques usuelles de l’information et de la communication »[2].

Dans des études qu’il a menées sur les pratiques de lecture numérique, Alain Giffard[12] qualifie de « pré-lecture » l’acte de lire le plus couramment pratiqué lorsque l’on navigue sur le Web : la lecture y ressemble à une sorte de scannage, fait de repérage et de sélection, au mieux d’un pré-montage ; et il distingue cette forme de lecture numérique de la « lecture d’étude », classique, livresque et lettrée, telle qu’elle s’est constituée historiquement depuis le Moyen-Âge autour de l’objet-livre. Or, cette pré-lecture a précisément les caractéristiques du mode d’attention très réactif et volatil entrainé par la surexposition aux médias : elle se révèle réactive/instable, multidirectionnelle/superficielle. Ainsi Alain Giffard montre que le risque est grand que la « pré-lecture » numérique devienne la « lecture de référence » des prochaines générations de collégiens, qui font partie de ce que l’on appelle les « digital natives », ce qui pourrait rendre quasiment impossible l’enseignement et la pratique de la lecture lettrée : « Technique par défaut, risque de confusion entre pré-lecture et lecture, entre lecture d'information et lecture d'étude, entre les différentes attentions, place de la simulation, contexte d'autoformation, arrivée de la génération des "natifs du numérique" dont certains prennent la lecture numérique comme référence: tous ces éléments peuvent se combiner. Le risque est grand alors de ce que certains chercheurs anglais appellent "reading without literacy", une lecture sans savoir lire qui est la forme la plus menaçante d' " illettrisme électronique ". »

The way that the Internet is designed—not graphic design, but overall habits and architecture—encourages the widespread distractability that I, at least, hate.

I learned it from Nicholas Carr

Interconnectivity: information that is of some inherent public interest is typically marinated in meta-information: (a) is bathed in (b). It is not enough to make the inherently interesting content instantly available and easy to find; it must also be surrounded by links, sidebars, menus, and other info, and promoted on social media via mail. This is deliberate, but it has gotten worse in the last ten years or so, with the advent of syndicated blog feeds (RSS), then various other social media feeds. This is, of course, supposed to be for the convenience and enlightenment of the user, and no doubt sometimes it is. But I think it usually doesn’t help anybody, except maybe people who are trying to build web traffic. Recency: the information to be most loudly announced online is not just recent, but the brand-spanking-newest, and what allegedly deserves our attention now is determined democratically, with special weight given to the opinions of people we know.

Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.  

A really big discontinuity has taken place.  One might even call it a "singularity"

Today’s students - K through college - represent the first generations to grow up with this new technology.

America was founded on the written word.

the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and, indirectly, the Bible

Being able to read silently to yourself was considered an amazing talent. Writing was an even rarer skill. In 15th-century Europe only one in 20 adult males could write.

It found that "enhanced" e-books might be distracting. Kids who read enhanced e-books—ones with interactive, multimedia experiences—were more engaged with them physically, but in the end they remembered fewer narrative details than those who read print books or basic e-books

And some studies have found that part of the difference between the way people absorb information from e-books versus paper might be due to approaching e-books differently—in one test, participants didn’t regulate their study time with digital books like they did with paper texts, leading to worse performances.