The myth of the golden age of reading

Sameer Rahim:

Attention spans are getting shorter. We no longer have the patience to read properly. The printed codex is a dead technology and the future is browsing ebooks and hyperlinked webpages. Listening to an audiobook isn’t as good as reading a proper book. These are some common arguments you hear. But are they right? Leah Price, an English scholar at Harvard, says we’re too quick to assume that there was a golden age of reading from which we have declined. Prospect’s Sameer Rahim talked to Price about her new book, What We Talk About When We Talk About Books, down the line from America. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.