The rise of searchable reading with the development of internet technology has changed the way and meaning of reading. The traditions of drinking, silent reading, and tea reading have evolved according to the needs of the times, and today’s reading has taken on a new dimension that emphasizes information processing and critical thinking.
Thanks to the rapid spread of internet technology since the late 20th century, a new way of reading has emerged that is nothing short of revolutionary. It’s called searchable reading, and it’s made possible by hypertext documents and e-books, which have changed the concept of the book and made it incredibly easy to store and retrieve information. As a reader, you are the user, and you can not only pick and choose what you need to read, but you can also cut out parts of the text you are reading or add other text to the text you are reading. The Internet also allows readers to access a wide variety of materials from around the world, which allows for a level of critical thinking and information comparison that was previously unimaginable. Information processing and critical reading have become so important that reading has been likened to navigating a vast ocean of information without getting lost. But what was it like in the past?
Early reading was centered around phonetic reading, reading aloud. The ancient Greeks believed that the written word needed to be read aloud in order to be complete, and early scrolls were written in a continuous technique with no spacing or punctuation, forcing the reader to stumble over the words in their own voice to understand the text. Reading and listening were common, whether it was a serious recitation of the Bible or scripture as part of a religious ritual, or indirectly by listening to a scribe or professional reader.
Then, around the 12th century, a major shift in the history of reading occurred: the invention of silent reading, which began among scribes in European monasteries. A scribe is a person whose profession is writing. It was inevitable that scribes would read as quietly as possible in communal life. Since books were a valuable commodity during this time, scribes had to take turns reading a single book. Booklets, which came to replace scrolls entirely around the same time, aided silent reading by making it possible to refer to annotations or reread earlier sections. With the advent of silent reading came the need to mark the spacing of words and the boundaries of sentences, leading to the development of spacing and punctuation. Along with this, books that recorded personal experiences of dissent, eroticism, and faith gradually appeared. This silent reading gave way to close, analytical reading.
In the mid-18th century, when silent and silent reading coexisted, a new way of reading emerged: the tea reading. With the spread of metal type and printing, book production increased to three to four times its previous level, and books of various genres were published. Women, who had never been exposed to books before, became readers in large numbers, and reading organizations such as reading societies and lending libraries rapidly increased. This led to the popularization of reading, and the purpose of reading expanded from simply gaining knowledge to enjoying leisure and using reading as a means of self-expression. Whereas in the previous era, intensive reading was practiced by reading a limited list of classics multiple times, reading was now decentralized. This means free and selective reading, where you can choose what you want to read against the authority of the required classics. These various ways of reading today have emerged one by one over a long period of time. Therefore, there are traces of the intellectual history of the time.
