The last century saw a steady gradual increase in literacy and thus in the number of readers. As the
number of readers increased, the number of potential listeners declined and thus there was some reduction in
the need to read aloud. As reading for the benefit of listeners grew less common, so came the flourishing of
reading as a private activity in such public places as libraries, railway carriages and offices, where reading
aloud would cause distraction to other readers.
Towards the end of the century, there was still considerable argument over whether books should be
used for information or treated respectfully and over whether the reading of materials such as newspapers was
in some way mentally weakening. Indeed, this argument remains with us still in education. However, whatever
its virtues, the old shared literacy culture had gone and was replaced by the printed mass media on the one
hand and by books and periodicals for a specialised readership on the other.
By the end of the twentieth century, students were being recommended to adopt attitudes to books and
to use reading skills which were inappropriate, if not impossible, for the oral reader. The social, cultural and
technological changes in the century had greatly altered what the term “reading” implied.
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